A new Economist/YouGov poll finds just 54% of Americans believe same-sex marriage should be legal, a marked drop from the record highs recorded only a few years ago, and a trend that multiple polling outfits now confirm.
The poll, released Tuesday by the Economist and YouGov, surveyed 1,559 U.S. adults between July 25 and 27. Thirty-two percent said same-sex marriage should not be legal, and 13% said they were "not sure." The margin of error was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
That 54% figure sits well below the peaks that other major pollsters recorded as recently as 2022 and 2023. Gallup measured a record 71% support in both of those years. The Public Religion Research Institute hit 69% in 2022. Both numbers have since fallen, and the Economist/YouGov data suggests the slide may be steeper than either of those outfits has captured.
Gallup released a poll in June showing 65% support for same-sex marriage and 32% opposition. That six-point drop from its own 71% high is significant on its own. PRRI published a poll earlier this year putting support at 65%, down four points from its 2022 peak.
But the Economist/YouGov numbers tell a sharper story. The same poll series recorded support as high as 55% in December 2025, January, and March. By May, that number had fallen to 51%, with opposition climbing to 34%. The latest reading of 54% represents a slight rebound from that low, but still marks a clear departure from the mid-to-high-60s range that dominated national polling for years.
The gap between the Economist/YouGov results and the Gallup and PRRI numbers is worth noting. An 11-point spread between 54% and 65% is large, even accounting for differences in methodology and question wording. It raises a fair question about whether the higher figures from Gallup and PRRI are lagging indicators of a shift the Economist/YouGov data has already picked up, or whether the difference reflects something else entirely.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, addressed the decline in an op-ed published by The Christian Post. Perkins argued that the cultural bargain Americans were offered a decade ago has not held up.
"The promise of 'marriage equality' was that it was simply about allowing committed same-sex couples to formalize their relationships. Americans were assured that nothing else would change."
Perkins was blunt about what followed: "But that is not what happened."
He tied the shift in public opinion to broader cultural consequences that he says flowed from redefining marriage. In a country where the Supreme Court's rulings increasingly shape the political landscape, Perkins framed the original 2015 decision as the start of a chain reaction that went well beyond wedding licenses.
"Once marriage is detached from the complementary union of man and woman, it becomes increasingly difficult to explain why mothers and fathers matter, why men and women are different, or why children have a right to both."
Whether one agrees with Perkins or not, the polling data gives his argument a factual foothold it did not have three years ago. The numbers are moving in his direction.
Same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state bans were unconstitutional. In 2022, then-President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying that ruling into federal law.
At the time, those moves looked like the final word. Polling support was climbing. The legislative and judicial questions appeared settled. The political class treated the issue as closed.
Public opinion, however, does not stay settled just because Washington says so. The same dynamic plays out across the political landscape, voters shift when they feel the real-world consequences of a policy diverge from the promises that sold it. That pattern has shown up in recent polling on Democratic credibility and in how voters respond to institutional overreach on issues far removed from marriage.
None of the polling data in the current batch explains precisely why support is falling. The Economist/YouGov poll asked about "a wide range of issues" beyond same-sex marriage, but no demographic breakdowns, by age, party, or religion, were included in the reporting. That leaves a significant gap. Are younger voters souring on the issue? Are independents shifting? Are Republican voters hardening? The data, as publicly reported, does not say.
Supporters of same-sex marriage can point out, fairly, that 54% still constitutes majority support. Even the May low of 51% cleared the halfway mark. The legal status of same-sex marriage is not in immediate jeopardy, and no serious political movement is pushing to reverse Obergefell.
But the trajectory matters more than any single snapshot. A position that commanded 71% support in Gallup's polling just two or three years ago and now sits somewhere between 51% and 65%, depending on the pollster, is not a position of growing strength. It is a position losing altitude.
For conservatives who have long argued that the cultural revolution around marriage moved too fast and promised too much, the numbers offer a measure of vindication. The assurances that redefining marriage would have no broader consequences, that it was, as Perkins put it, "simply about allowing committed same-sex couples to formalize their relationships", are harder to maintain when the public itself is reconsidering.
Congress, for its part, has shown it can still surprise observers on issues where public sentiment shifts. Recent House votes on stock trading restrictions demonstrated that lawmakers will move when voter pressure builds. Whether the same-sex marriage numbers ever generate that kind of legislative pressure remains an open question.
And the broader political environment keeps producing unexpected reversals. Senate leadership has scrambled on multiple fronts as the ground shifts beneath positions once considered safe.
The margin of error on the Economist/YouGov poll is 3.3 points. That means the true level of support could be as low as roughly 51%, or as high as 57%. Neither end of that range comes close to the commanding supermajorities that defined the issue just a few years ago.
When the promises outrun the consequences, the public eventually notices. The polling suggests that process is already underway.