Three out of every four Kenyans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, with a majority saying their economic circumstances have deteriorated since President William Ruto came to power in 2022, according to a new Tifa Research poll.
The survey released Wednesday found that 76 per cent of Kenyans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, the highest negative rating recorded in Tifa’s tracking since March 2023.
Only about 14 per cent said the country was headed in the right direction. Tifa’s summary of the findings puts the positive rating at 15 per cent.
The pessimism is closely tied to the economic circumstances facing households, with 65 per cent saying their personal or family economic situation has worsened since the 2022 election.
Only 12 per cent said their circumstances had improved, while 23 per cent said they had remained the same.
“The question as to how much do personal economic conditions over the last four years affect Kenyans’ opinions about the country’s direction can be at least partly answered by correlating these two issues. Doing so reveals what might be expected: that many more of those who consider the country’s direction as being “right” report that their economic condition has improved since 2022 as compared with those who feel the country’s recent direction is “wrong” (39per cent vs 7per cent),” the report said.
While the proportion of Kenyans who say they are worse off has eased from 75 per cent in May 2025 to 65 per cent in June 2026, Tifa says the change since November 2025 is not statistically significant.
In Mt Kenya, 90 per cent said Kenya was heading in the wrong direction, followed by 89 per cent in Nairobi, 83 per cent in Lower Eastern and 82 per cent in South Rift.
Even in the Northern and Central Rift regions, which recorded the strongest positive sentiment, only 38 per cent and 24 per cent respectively said the country was moving in the right direction.
Those saying Kenya was on the wrong path rose from 68 per cent in November 2025 to 74 per cent in May and 76 per cent in June. The 76 per cent rating is the highest recorded in the tracking series.
At the same time, the number of those reporting an improvement in their personal or household finances has fallen to 12 per cent which is the lowest level recorded since August last year suggesting that the modest easing in the number of people who feel worse off has yet to translate into a broader sense of economic recovery.
“With some two-thirds of Kenyans indicating a worsening of their economic situation, unless this changes over the next year, it could be challenging for all politicians seeking re-election, especially those identified with the incumbent government,” Tifa says in the report.
The proportion saying, they were worse off has remained stubbornly high, standing at 67 per cent in November last year and 64 per cent in May before edging to 65 per cent in June.
Kenyans interviewed in the poll said the issue is less about the economic growth figures being presented by the government and more about what is left in their pockets at the end of the month.
Tifa found that unemployment and poverty are now the biggest problems facing the country, cited by 44 per cent of respondents. Another 25 per cent pointed to inflation, high prices and high taxes.
Corruption followed at 19 per cent, while crime and insecurity, healthcare, education and political and ethnic tensions attracted only marginal mentions.
The findings suggest that the pain from the cost of living remains deeply embedded even as the immediate shock of the fuel price increases earlier in the year has eased.
Tifa says unemployment and poverty have returned to the top of the list of concerns, while the proportion naming inflation, high prices and high taxes fell sharply from 47 per cent in May to 25 per cent in June.
The pollster, however, noted that inflation was still about 6.5 per cent at the time of the survey.
Trust in public institutions remains weak, with no institution commanding the confidence of more than 40 per cent of Kenyans, pointing to a broad institutional confidence deficit.
Political alignment, however, sharply shapes those views.
Supporters of the Broad-Based Government are consistently more trusting of state institutions than its opponents, with the widest gap recorded in confidence in President William Ruto: 58 per cent of BBG supporters expressed trust in him, compared with just 16 per cent among opponents, underscoring how deeply political loyalties have influenced perceptions of state institutions.
At the same time, only 58 per cent of adults said they were working either full-time, part-time or through self-employment, down from 63 per cent in November 2025.
Tifa says the figures need to be viewed against rising inflation and fuel prices, which have weakened the purchasing power of households even where nominal incomes have remained relatively stable.
“Even if reported total household income levels have remained quite constant, the rising inflation and several fuel-price increases since mid-April mean the actual purchasing power of individuals and households has been weakening substantially,” read the report.
Those who believe Kenya is on the wrong path are substantially more likely to say their household has suffered economically, while those who believe the country is headed in the right direction are much more likely to report an improvement in their circumstances.
Trust in key public institutions remains low, with no institution tested attracting the trust of more than 40 per cent of respondents.
The Judiciary had the highest combined "a lot" and "some" trust rating at 36 per cent, followed by county government leadership at 31 per cent, the IEBC at 30 per cent and Parliament at 27 per cent. The President recorded 29 per cent overall.
Fifty-eight per cent of supporters of the Broad-Based Government said they trusted him, compared with only 16 per cent among those opposed to the arrangement. The Broad-Based Government itself continues to struggle for majority acceptance, with 52 per cent opposing the arrangement between Ruto and the late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, compared with 30 per cent who support it.
The findings on policing offer another glimpse into the public's frustrations with government institutions.
Among Kenyans who said they had been victims of crime this year, only 43 per cent reported the incidents to the police.
Of those who did not report, nearly half attributed their decision to police inefficiency or corruption with 32 per cent citing inefficiency and 13 per cent corruption.
The findings are drawn from Tifa’s first national survey of 2026, conducted between June 13 and 22, 2026, through face-to-face household interviews with 2,048 randomly selected adults across all 47 counties.
The survey cautions that events occurring during and after the fieldwork may have influenced public opinion, meaning the results capture the mood of Kenyans at the time the survey was conducted.
