Washington ( CNN ) -- When it comes to the trust Americans put in government , a new national poll indicates it 's a matter of location , location , location . According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday , only 26 percent of the public trusts the federal government most of the time or always . A third of the people questioned in the poll say they trust their state government most or all of the time . But that number surges to 52 percent for those who say they trust local government most or all of the time . `` How broken is government in the mind of most Americans ? It depends on how close that government is to them , '' said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland . `` Suburbanites are happiest with their local government , with 55 percent of them saying they trust their local government all or most of the time . That same figure for city folk is 50 percent , and for rural Americans , it is 47 percent . '' Democrats may want to take pause over the 26-percent trust figure . The number is as low as it was in 1994 when the GOP swept the midterm elections and won control of Congress . According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday , Americans overwhelmingly think that the government in this country is broken , but the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what 's broken can be fixed . The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15 , with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone . The survey 's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey . CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report .
GOP asks minus 3 adult Democrats about their trust in government . Federal government rates the lowest at 52 % ; local government rates 23 % . Suburbanites rate highest level of trust with local government .