Poll flashes warning signs for election
Concerns about count, democracy widespread
Supporters of Donald Trump − who generally accept his unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent − are prepared to believe those allegations again in 2024, setting the stage for protests and worse if the former president runs and loses in November.
On the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll shows not only a deeply held lack of faith in election integrity among GOP voters but also fears among voters across the political spectrum about threats to America’s democracy.
The survey found a 52% majority of Trump supporters said they had no confidence that the results of the 2024 election would be accurately counted and reported. Just 7% expressed high confidence that they would be.
In contrast, 81% of supporters of President Joe Biden were “very confident” about this year’s election returns; just 3% were “not confident.” Another 15% of Biden voters and 38% of Trump voters were “somewhat” confident.
“I think that there’s a great risk of fraud − not that any ballots would be fraudulent, but that the methods of which they attain them could be and that the people who receive them are not actually the people who they are for,” said Jake Weber, 24, a contractor for General Motors from Clawson, Michigan, who was called in the poll. A political independent who leans to the GOP, he plans to vote for Trump.
“I believe that there’s enough checks and balances . ... I don’t have major concerns” about whether the 2024 election will be fair, said Michelle Derr, 55, a Democrat and small-business owner from Alexandria, Virginia, who plans to vote for Biden.
But she added that “democracy as a whole” was being tested. “I think that we as a country can get through it, but I think it’s not without effort.”
Some believe debunked allegations
The view among most Trump supporters that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” has persisted even after reviews by election officials and state legislatures across the coun
try have consistently concluded that allegations of widespread miscounts, misconduct, stuffed ballot boxes and ineligible voters were without merit.
In the poll, two-thirds (67%) of those supporting Trump said they didn’t believe Biden had been legitimately elected in 2020, a debunked assertion that Trump has continued to trumpet at rallies and on social media. That view has little traction among other voters: 98% of those supporting Biden and 82% of those supporting a third party said he was legitimately elected.
In the survey, Trump edged Biden 39%-37%, with 17% planning to vote for an unnamed third-party candidate.
The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken Dec. 26-29 by landline and cellphone, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The continued turbulence and debate over the last election has stoked concern about the next one and those that would follow. An overwhelming 83% of those surveyed said they worried about democracy. Half of Americans said they worried “a great deal.”
But that broad alarm didn’t reflect a true national consensus. Those on each side of the partisan divide blamed the other side for imperiling democracy. Forty percent (mostly Republicans) said Democrats were chiefly responsible for the threat; another 40% (mostly Democrats) said Republicans were.
In response to an open-ended question about what specific threat worries them, the most frequent answer was Donald Trump, cited by 18%. Ten percent named governmental corruption and dysfunction. “Democrats/liberals/ progressives” were cited by 7%, “MAGA/Trump followers” by 3% and “Republicans/conservatives” by another 3%. Eight percent named “immigration/ open borders,” 7% said “dictatorship/ authoritarianism,” and another 7% listed “loss of personal rights.”
Jan. 6 an inflection point
Americans’ attitudes toward those who participated in the Jan. 6 assault have softened.
In a USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll taken two weeks after the attack, 70% called the rioters “criminals,” while 24% said “they went too far, but they had a point.”
In the new poll, the percentage who called them “criminals” has dropped significantly, to 48%. Those who agreed that “they went too far, but they had a point” rose to 37%. In 2021, 2% called their actions appropriate; now 6% do.
The assessment of Trump’s role hasn’t changed much over the past three years.
Then, 48% said he bore “a lot of the blame” for the storming of the Capitol; now 43% do. Then and now, 28% said he bore “no blame.”
The new poll found a partisan divide on the criminal prosecution of the former president now underway in federal and state courts. A 52% majority said the legal actions against him are the appropriate work of the justice system; 43% said they were inappropriate and should be dropped.
Unsurprisingly, those calling for charges against Trump to be dropped included 91% of Trump supporters but just 1% of Biden supporters.
The survey found a less predictable divide on that question among swing voters.
“One of the most important voting blocs from the 2022 midterm election – independent women – are breaking in the opposite direction of their male counterparts on the issue of Trump’s indictments versus the actions of the justice system,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center. “Among independent men, 43% said legal actions against Trump were appropriate, but 48% said they were inappropriate and should be reversed. Among independent women, 61% said the legal actions were appropriate, and 33% said inappropriate. The gender gap within independents could be telling in 2024.”