Public approval of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has jumped sharply in the past year, making it the only major federal agency to show a significant gain in Gallup’s latest annual governance survey—as ratings for most other agencies have fallen to record lows.
According to Gallup’s poll, published on Oct. 9, DHS’s job performance was rated as “excellent” or “good” by 42 percent of respondents, up from 32 percent in 2024. That 10-point increase is the largest year-over-year improvement among the 15 federal agencies measured though still below its 2017 peak of 59 percent.
By contrast, ratings for six other prominent agencies—including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Internal Revenue Service—dropped to their lowest or near-lowest levels in Gallup’s multi-year trend….