We study the problem of density of polynomials in the de Branges spaces ℋ($E$) of entire functions and obtain conditions (in terms of the distribution of the zeros of the generating function$E$) ensuring that the polynomials belong to the space ℋ($E$) or are dense in this space. We discuss the relation of these results with the recent paper of V. P. Havin and J. Mashreghi on majorants for the shift-coinvariant subspaces. Also, it is shown that the density of polynomials implies the hypercyclicity of translation operators in ℋ($E$).