A majority of Republican voters falsely believe that election fraud in the 2020 presidential race helped Joe Biden win office. Six out of 10 Republicans, a new poll has found, believe that the election was “stolen” from former President Donald Trump.
There is no basis for GOP-leaning voters to hold these beliefs — other than the false assertions made by Trump and his associates, including his followers in Congress. No proof of widespread election fraud has ever been documented, and several audits across the country have shown that errant claims of fake ballots helping Biden to win or of voter machines being rigged to switch votes away from Trump, among other conspiracy theories, are false.
Still, more than half of Republican voters remain convinced — all evidence to the contrary — that fraud occurred in the 2020 race, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll published this week revealed.
Respondents were asked to answer which views best matched their opinion — whether the election last year was “legitimate and accurate” or if the election results came about due to fraud or other ballot-rigging schemes. Fifty-five percent of respondents overall said the election was legitimate, but among GOP-leaning voters, that number fell to 25 percent.
However, 56 percent of Republicans said they felt the results were impacted by election fraud, a view that only a quarter of respondents overall shared.
When asked by pollsters whether they felt the election was “stolen” from Trump, 61 percent of Republicans said that it was, with only 28 percent saying he did not have the election stolen from him.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll published this week matches findings made in late March, suggesting that GOP voters are not likely to change their views regardless of the facts. In the March Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 27 percent of Republican voters said the 2020 presidential election results were legitimate, while 55 percent wrongly said the results were due to fraud. Sixty percent of Republican respondents at that time also opined that the election was “stolen” from Trump.
While the two polls, conducted as many months apart, appear to demonstrate no movement on the issue whatsoever among Republicans, there does appear to be a slight change in opinion for some GOP-leaning voters from earlier this year. A poll in February from the R Street Institute, a conservative organization, found that 67 percent of Republican voters felt the election was invalid at that time, while only 23 percent said they accepted the results as legitimate.
Still, the fact that there has been so little movement by GOP voters on the false notion of election fraud indicates that the issue will likely play a big part in the 2022 midterms — which has the potential to help or hurt Republican candidates during those races.
The false belief that the election was “stolen” from Trump might induce his base of supporters to turn out in strong numbers in next year’s elections, resulting in the Republican Party gaining control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate as well.
However, those same false beliefs about the legitimacy of the last elections may also deter Trump’s base from going to the polls, which could be detrimental to the Republican Party’s attempts to regain control of Congress.
Frank Luntz, a veteran Republican pollster, said that skepticism among the Trump faithful in the electoral process — reinforced repeatedly by Trump himself — could end up hurting the GOP in the long run.
“This could cost the Republicans the majority in the House in 2022. What Donald Trump is saying is actually telling people it’s not worth it to vote,” Luntz said earlier this month.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 98 new monthly donors before midnight tonight.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy