Our research this year touched on pivotal news stories, from the U.S. presidential election and ongoing conflicts around the world to heated debates on topics like immigration and social media.
Here’s a look back at 2024 through 14 of our most striking research findings. Be sure to read our full roundup for more in-depth analysis and charts!
1. The number of Americans ages 100 and older is projected to more than quadruple over the next 30 years, from 111,000 to 422,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Today, 78% of the nation’s centenarians are women.
2. Republican confidence in U.S. vote counts surged after the 2024 presidential election, while Democratic confidence fell slightly. For example, the share of Trump voters expressing confidence that mail-in ballots were counted correctly rose from 19% in 2020 to 72% this year.
3. Most registered voters say immigrants – no matter their legal status – mostly fill jobs American citizens don’t want, as opposed to jobs citizens would like to have. Three-quarters of voters say this about undocumented immigrants, while 61% say this about legal immigrants.
4. About one-in-five Americans regularly get news from influencers on social media, including 37% of adults under 30. Most who do so say that news from influencers differs from news they get elsewhere. The majority of news influencers themselves (77%) have no affiliation with a news organization.
5. Most people across 35 countries say democracy in the U.S. used to be a good example for other countries to follow but has not been in recent years – or that it has never been a good example. Americans are the most likely to say their country is no longer a good example (72%), followed by majorities in Canada, Japan, the UK and other countries.
6. Six-in-ten Americans said in late October that they probably won’t get the 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine. Smaller shares said they probably will get an updated vaccine (24%) or had already received one (15%).
7. Amid the Israel-Hamas war, younger U.S. adults express more sympathy for the Palestinian people than the Israeli people, while the reverse is true among older Americans, according to a February survey. And younger Americans especially oppose the U.S. providing military aid to Israel – only 16% of those ages 18 to 29 support it.
8. A majority (59%) of public K-12 teachers in the U.S. say they are at least somewhat worried about a shooting ever happening at their school. About one-in-four teachers said they experienced a gun-related lockdown at their school in the 2022-23 academic year.
9. Voters’ perceptions of Joe Biden’s mental sharpness changed notably during his presidency. In the final month of his 2020 presidential campaign, 46% of registered voters agreed he was “mentally sharp.” By July 2024, only 24% of voters described him that way.
10. The share of Americans who say Jewish people face a lot of discrimination in society has doubled since 2021. Four-in-ten U.S. adults say Jews face a lot of discrimination today, up from 20% in 2021. And 44% say Muslims face a lot of discrimination, up more modestly from 39%.
11. Since 2021, Republicans who use X (formerly Twitter) have become much more likely – and Democratic users much less likely – to say the social media platform is mostly good for democracy. The share of Republican users saying this jumped from 17% to 53%, while the share among Democratic users fell from 47% to 26%.
12. Around four-in-ten webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer available today. Even among pages that existed in 2021, 22% were no longer accessible just two years later.
13. Donald Trump and JD Vance will be further apart in age than any president-vice president pair in U.S. history – by almost a decade. They have an age gap of 38.1 years; the largest gap was previously 29.7 years, between President James Buchanan and Vice President John Breckinridge.
14. Just 22% of Americans say the cost of college is worth it, even if someone has to take out loans. A larger share (47%) say the cost is worth it only if someone doesn’t have to take out loans, while 29% say the cost is not worth it.