WASHINGTON — Linda Bell, a beekeeper and farmer who makes about $11,000 a year, feels Washington power brokers have no intention of making health care affordable.

“They don’t care about people like me,” says the Bosque County, Texas, resident.

Three-quarters of Americans think people like themselves have too little influence in Washington, rare unanimity across political, economic, racial and geographical lines and including both those who approve and disapprove of President Trump, according to a new poll by The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Majorities also don’t have a great deal of confidence in most of the nation’s institutions. That’s especially true of Congress, which takes the biggest hit, and the presidency.

Even at a time of deepening economic and political divisions, the poll finds widespread agreement that small businesses, poor Americans and workers have too little power in Washington, while lobbyists, big business and rich people have too much.

The results are notable because Trump won his presidency with a populist call-to-arms to make “forgotten Americans” his priority and to restore jobs to people still struggling Republicans who control Congress echoed Trump’s vow to overhaul President Obama’s health care law and cut people’s taxes as part of a drive to restore the American middle class. Those efforts have wobbled, however, amid Trump’s efforts to crack down on Muslim immigration, his Twitter feuds, investigations into allegations of collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign and Congress’ inability so far to replace “Obamacare.”

“He said he was going to restore the middle class, and I thought he would pick really good people who would do that. But the people he picked seem to be not in touch with the middle class,” said Hobart, Indiana, resident James Pavelka, 60, who said he voted for Trump. He was referring to Trump’s Cabinet, thought to be the wealthiest in modern times. “During the campaign, he said, ‘I’m for the little guy.’ People were angry and he fed on that and he knew how to do that.”


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