A new Pew Research Center experiment finds that Americans recognize rival global powers, but how dominant they see the United States depends heavily on how the question is asked.
For decades, Americans have been told that the United States is the world’s leading superpower. Its military operates across the globe, its economy moves international markets, and its political decisions ripple through countries thousands of miles away. But with China and other nations competing for influence, the idea that American power stands alone is harder to take for granted.
A new Pew Research Center experiment, published October 27, suggests Americans hold a more complicated view of global power than standard polling questions capture. Asked to name the world’s superpowers, respondents chose the United States most often, followed by China and Russia. But the percentages shifted significantly depending on how the question was framed.
That raises two questions. Do Americans increasingly see a world in which several countries hold real power? And how much of what we think we know about public opinion depends on how researchers ask?
America Is Still First, But Not Necessarily Alone
Pew surveyed U.S. adults March 23–29, 2026, through its nationally representative American Trends Panel. Instead of asking people to pick the single leading military or economic power, researchers posed a broader question: Which countries are global superpowers?
The survey defined a superpower as a country that is both militarily and economically dominant. Respondents could name up to six countries, and researchers tested two versions of the question:
- The direct version asked respondents outright which countries are superpowers.
- The two-step version first asked whether any superpowers exist, then asked those who said yes to name them.
Both versions produced the same ranking, but the numbers differed considerably.
Asked directly, 57% named the United States, 44% named China and 24% named Russia. In the two-step version, those figures fell to 50%, 32% and 14%.
The United States came out on top either way. The 12-point gap for China stands out most. Nothing about China’s actual power differed between the two groups; only the path respondents took to their answers changed.
In other words, Americans’ judgments about global power reflect not just what they know about geopolitics, but also the questions used to measure those views.
The World Looks Different When People Can Name More Than One Power
Traditional surveys tend to ask Americans to identify the single leading economy or strongest military. Those questions reveal who people think is on top, but not whether they see other countries as major powers too.
Someone might believe the United States has the world’s strongest military and still consider China a superpower because of its economic reach and growing military. Another might count Russia as a superpower because of its nuclear arsenal and geopolitical clout, while acknowledging its economy is far smaller than America’s or China’s.
Neither view contradicts the belief that the United States remains the world’s leading power.
In the direct version, 27% of respondents named three or more superpowers, compared with 15% in the two-step version. The share naming exactly one superpower was 27% in both.
Respondents in the direct version also named 47 different countries, compared with 30 in the two-step version.
So Americans do recognize multiple centers of power when given room to name them, but how multipolar the world looks in a poll depends a great deal on survey design.
China Has Complicated the American Superpower Story
China’s showing is especially notable because economic strength has become central to global competition.
The United States remains the world’s largest economy in nominal dollars, with China second. China is also woven into global manufacturing, trade and supply chains, with economic ties stretching across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
That reach doesn’t automatically translate into military superiority or the kind of alliance network the United States has built. But it does undercut the idea that global power can be measured by military strength alone.
Russia is a different case. Its nuclear arsenal and military activity give it outsized geopolitical weight, even though its economy is much smaller than those of the United States or China.
The experiment didn’t ask respondents why they chose each country, so it can’t say which economic, military or political factors drove their answers.
Still, the results show Americans are willing to recognize rival powers without ranking them above the United States.
That matters because debates about American influence are often framed as a choice between continued dominance and decline. The real picture is messier than either.
Even Americans Who See the U.S. as No. 1 Recognize Other Powers
One of Pew’s most telling findings came from comparing the experiment with answers the same respondents gave to earlier questions about global economic and military leadership.
In 2025, 42% of respondents had named the United States as both the world’s leading economy and its leading military power.
Yet in the 2026 experiment, 44% of that group named two or more superpowers when asked the direct question. In the two-step version, 29% did.
That undercuts the assumption that seeing America as the strongest country means seeing it as the only superpower.
A country can lead while sharing the stage with other powerful nations. Rival powers don’t erase American influence, and American leadership doesn’t erase rivals’ economic and military strength.
The comparison has limits. Respondents answered the earlier questions in 2025 and took part in the experiment in March 2026, so their views may have shifted in between. The two sets of questions also measured related but different things, which makes direct comparison imperfect.
Even so, the findings show why asking people to name a single leader can produce a narrower picture than asking them about the broader global order.
The Polling Question Can Shape the Headline
The most consequential finding may have less to do with the United States or China than with how public opinion gets measured.
Respondents who were first asked whether superpowers exist were much more likely to say they weren’t sure: 28% in the two-step version, compared with 18% in the direct version.
That 10-point gap matters. The direct question invited respondents to start naming countries right away. The two-step version first asked them to decide whether the concept applied at all.
Pew’s researchers suspect that the extra chance to say “not sure” explains much of why fewer countries were named in the two-step version.
The lesson reaches well beyond foreign-policy polling.
Surveys shape political coverage, public debate and how institutions understand the people they serve. A headline saying 44% of Americans consider China a superpower sends a different message than one saying 32% do, even though both numbers come from the same experiment.
Neither figure is wrong. But reporting either one without explaining the method could leave readers with an incomplete picture of what was actually measured.
That’s especially true when polls are used to support sweeping narratives about national strength, global competition or confidence in American leadership.
American Power Is Not All or Nothing
The Pew research doesn’t show that the world has become multipolar, and it doesn’t show that American influence is declining. It measures how Americans identify superpowers under different survey conditions, not how economic and military power is actually distributed.
What it does show is that public perception doesn’t fit into neat categories.
Americans can see the United States as the leading global power while also recognizing China’s economic weight and Russia’s military capabilities. They can believe several countries hold exceptional power without thinking those countries are equally influential. And they can give different answers when researchers change how the question is framed.
Pew says it will most likely use the direct version in future cross-national surveys. Its reasons: the two versions produced few substantive differences, the direct version is simpler to administer, and fewer respondents declined to answer it.
For readers, the takeaway goes beyond which country belongs at the top of the global order.
The next time a poll says Americans believe the United States is losing influence, holding its dominance or facing a new rival, it’s worth checking exactly what respondents were asked.
Because knowing who Americans see as powerful starts with knowing how they were asked.