An Update from the Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service
As the United States of America begins its 249th year of independence, strong majorities of North Carolinians believe that certain liberties and rights are important to the nation’s civic society, based on a Catawba-YouGov survey.
North Carolinians were asked their opinions regarding the level of importance of sixteen principles related to rights and liberties, many of which are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. While strong consensus exists among North Carolinians on these democratic principles, sizeable partisan differences emerge regarding nearly half of the listed fundamental freedoms.
This is the first of three survey findings highlighting North Carolinians’ opinions on core principles of American democracy. Other findings will focus on North Carolinians’ attitudes regarding principles of governing authority and civic participation.
Nine out of ten North Carolinians said that five rights were the highest in the level of importance (‘very’ or ‘somewhat’), with four of the top five being rights associated with criminal law:
- At 91 percent, ‘when charged with violating the law, evidence must be presented in an open and transparent manner within a court of law’ had the highest level of importance among the sixteen rights and liberties.
- At 90 percent of importance, ‘citizens have basic rights and processes that the government or governmental officials must respect.’
- Also, at 90 percent of North Carolinians expressing importance were the criminal rights of a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the right to a jury of peers, and punishment only after an open and fair process.
However, less than 7 out of 10 North Carolinians believe that three types of rights were important, all of which dealt with citizens and non-citizens.
The right with the lowest level of importance was ‘when the U.S. Constitution guarantees rights to “all persons,” this includes both citizens and non-citizens’ at just 61 percent overall. This right comes from the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The disagreement between Democrats and Republicans is stark: only 38 percent of Republicans said it was important, compared to 86 percent of Democrats who said so, a 47-point difference.
Among those who voted for Donald Trump for president in 2024, only 37 percent said this right was important, with 47 percent indicating it wasn’t important. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order stating that the federal government would not “issue documents recognizing United States citizenship” to those born on American soil whose parents who were not already a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, thus ending birthright citizenship.
On July 10, 2025, a U.S. district court judge issued a nationwide injunction against the order, suspending the executive order.
“The Catawba-YouGov poll also asked two versions of a birthright citizenship question, and found very comparable results,” said Dr. Michael Bitzer, director of the Center for N.C. Politics & Public Service. “With one, we included the phrase ‘even if their parents are non-citizens’ in the question, while excluding the phrase in another question. When the ‘parents’ phrase was included, support dropped slightly, from 69 percent saying it was important down to 67 percent, with corresponding small drops among all partisan identifications.”
“But the gap between how self-identifying Democrats and Republicans view birthright citizenship is considerable,” Bitzer said. A 44-point difference exists between the two partisan groups, with at least 89 percent of Democrats saying birthright citizenship was important, compared to only 45 percent of Republicans identifying it as important.
The poll, written and funded by Catawba College’s Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service and conducted by YouGov from June 10-26, 2025, has a margin of error of +/- 3.56 percent for the 1,000 weighted respondents who are 18 and older and live in North Carolina, with larger margins of error among sub-groups. All results should be interpreted as informative and not determinative.
Notably Numbers Among North Carolinians About Rights & Liberties
While partisan differences for nine principles were relatively small, four other principles besides citizenship showed gaps of at least 10 points or great:
- Nine out of ten Democrats indicated that the principle of “Universities, business, and professional organizations operate independently of government pressure” was important, compared to two-thirds of Republicans (a 23-point difference).
- 71 percent of Republicans said it was important that government not interfere with journalists or news organization in reporting the news, compared to 87 percent of Democrats (a 16-point difference).
- Less than three-quarters of Republicans believe in the importance of government protecting an individual’s right to engage in unpopular speech or expression, compared to 87 percent of Democrats (a 14-point difference).
- 90 percent of Democrats said the right of individuals to engage in peaceful protests was important, while eight out of ten Republicans said the same.
Other notable numbers within the data include:
- Only one right—that of publicly disclosed criminal charges—was more important to Republicans (84 percent) than Democrats (81 percent). The other fifteen principles saw more Democrats indicate a higher level of importance than Republicans.
- “All adult citizens enjoy the same legal and political rights” was important to 88 percent of North Carolinians.
- 86 percent said that “both the law and the administration of the law and government can be freely and publicly criticized by citizens.”
- 85 percent of North Carolinians said “government protects individuals' right to engage in peaceful protest” and “the law is enforced equally for all persons, no matter their status or connections” were important.
Two more releases will focus on how North Carolinians rank the importance of governing authority and civic participation to American democracy.
