(Trends Wide) — Most Americans consider democracy to be under attack in the country (56%), according to a new Trends Wide poll conducted by SSRS, as 51% say US elected officials are likely to annul with The results of a future election were successful because his party did not win.
Almost all Americans consider democracy in the US to be at least tested: 93% overall say that democracy is under attack (56%) or that it is being tested but not attacked (37% ). A meager 6% say that America’s democracy is not in danger.
Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say that democracy is under attack, and that view is more prevalent among those who support former President Donald Trump. Overall, 75% of Republicans say democracy is under attack, compared to 46% of Democrats.
Among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, those who say Trump should be the party leader are much more likely to see democracy under threat: 79% in that group versus 51% among those who say Trump shouldn’t be the leader of the party.
And Republicans who support Trump continue to push the belief in the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Although there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, 36% of Americans say that President Joe Biden did not legitimately get enough votes to win the presidency. That 36% includes 23% who falsely say there is strong evidence that Biden didn’t win, and 13% who say that’s just their suspicion.
Among Republicans, 78% say Biden did not win and 54% believe there is strong evidence for it, despite no such evidence. That opinion is also deeply related to support for Trump. Among Republicans who say Trump should be the party leader, 88% believe that Biden lost, including 64% who say there is strong evidence that he did not win, while among Republicans who do not want Trump to lead the party , 57% say that Biden won legitimately.
Looking ahead to future elections, 51% of all Americans say it is at least somewhat likely that an election in the next few years will be overruled by elected officials because their party lost, while 49% say it is unlikely.
Opinions on this perspective are more closely tied to the perception of the threat facing democracy in the United States than to partisanship. Those who say that democracy in the United States is under attack are the most likely to believe that an election is likely to be annulled for partisan reasons (58%), while the majority of those who do not see that democracy is under attack say that this is unlikely (58%).
Among Republicans, 57% say the election is very or quite likely to be annulled, while 48% of independents and 49% of Democrats think the same.
Democrats and independents, however, are driving a drop in confidence that the US elections reflect the will of the people. A narrow general majority, 52%, now say they lack that confidence, up from 40% who thought so in January. Among Democrats, confidence has dropped from 90% in January to 69% now, and among independents, it has fallen from 54% to 46% in that time, while Republican confidence has remained largely the same and is now stands at 24%.
This change comes after a series of major changes to statewide electoral rules and regulations. Republican officials in some states have tightened voting rules, while some Democratic-controlled states have taken steps to make the looser rules in place to deal with the coronavirus pandemic permanent. According to the survey, less than half of those surveyed consider that the measures taken by both sides have the purest intentions.
Most consider that the parties in power make these changes for their own benefit. About 6 in 10 (58%) say changes to electoral laws in Republican-controlled states were made to help the party in power rather than make elections fairer, while 53% It says the same about such changes in the Democratic-controlled states.
Combining the two results, about a quarter overall say that both parties are acting in their own interest (25%), and only 12% say that both parties are acting to make the elections fairer. About a third of each say that one party intends to make the elections fairer while the other moves to maintain control (33% say that Democrats are making the most fair elections and Republicans are acting to help their party, 29% say Republicans are making the elections fairer while Democrats are trying to stay in control).
Democrats and Republicans in the poll are on opposite sides as to whether the biggest problem with voting rules in US elections is that they make it too difficult to vote or that they are not strict enough to prevent illegal votes. . Among Republicans, 83% say the problem is that the rules are not strict enough, while 66% of Democrats say it is too difficult to vote.
The new Trends Wide poll was conducted by SSRS between Aug. 3 and Sept. 7 among a random national sample of 2,119 adults initially reached by mail. Interviews were conducted online or by phone with a live interviewer. The full sample results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
