Three Organizations, One Conclusion
Freedom House scored the United States at 81 out of 100 in its 2025 assessment, the lowest score since the organization began using its current 100-point scale in 2002. The U.S. was at 94 in 2010. It lost 6 points during the first Trump presidency alone.
The V-Dem Institute downgraded the United States from a “liberal democracy” to an “electoral democracy” for the first time in over 50 years. Before 2017, V-Dem rated the U.S. as more democratic than most of its G7 peers. In the 2026 report, the U.S. democracy score is below all other G7 nations.
The Economist Intelligence Unit rated the U.S. at 7.65 out of 10, its lowest ever, and has classified the country as a “flawed democracy” since 2016.
81/100. “Electoral democracy.” 7.65. Three independent organizations. Three different methodologies. The same downgrade.
These are not editorials. Freedom House, V-Dem, and the Economist Democracy Index are research institutions that measure democratic health using specific, quantifiable indicators. They track civil liberties, political rights, judicial independence, media freedom, and government accountability. The U.S. declined on all of them.
What the Indicators Measure
Freedom House cited three drivers of the U.S. decline. An “escalation in the executive branch’s unilateral authority.” A “multiyear rise in threats and reprisals for political speech.” And an administration that “disregarded conflicts of interest and weakened both anticorruption safeguards and enforcement practices.”
Pew Research confirmed in April 2026 that “multiple indicators show a decline in the health of America’s democracy in 2025.” Bright Line Watch, a separate academic project tracking democratic norms, gave the U.S. its third consecutive “terrible score.”
Media freedom, personal expression, and due process registered the most severe deterioration over the last two decades. The press freedom ranking dropped to 64th globally, down 7 places in a single year, according to Reporters Without Borders.
The Pattern These Scores Describe
The indicators do not measure whether you agree with the government’s policies. They measure whether the systems that allow disagreement are intact. Can courts overrule the executive? Can journalists report without retaliation? Can opposition parties compete on equal terms? Can citizens speak freely without fear?
When Freedom House says the score dropped from 94 to 81, it is saying that the answer to those questions has gotten worse across every dimension. When V-Dem says the U.S. is no longer a liberal democracy, it is saying the protections that distinguished a liberal democracy from an electoral one, independent courts, free press, protected civil liberties, have weakened below the threshold.
What Happened to Hungary
Hungary followed the same trajectory. After Viktor Orban won a supermajority in 2010, he rewrote the constitution, weakened the Constitutional Court by changing its appointment process and narrowing its jurisdiction, concentrated media ownership under pro-government businessmen who merged most outlets into one foundation, restricted NGOs that received foreign funding, and openly described his goal as building an “illiberal state.”
He did all of it using democratic tools. Parliamentary votes. New laws. Constitutional amendments. The tools of democracy dismantled democracy.
Hungary’s Freedom House score dropped from 76 (2010) to 67 (2022). It took 12 years. The U.S. dropped from 94 to 81 in 15 years, with the steepest decline in the last two.
Orban lost power in 2026. CSIS described the road back as hard. The institutions he captured do not uncapture easily.
What the Scores Do Not Measure
These indices do not measure whether the country is “good” or “bad.” They measure the distance between the current state of democratic institutions and the standards those institutions were designed to uphold. An 81 does not mean the country is failing. It means the country is measurably further from its own standards than at any point in the modern era.
The question is not whether the score is low enough to worry about. The question is which direction it is moving.
Read more on the Rule of Law hub and the courts blocking analysis.