WASHINGTON (AP) — American voters are approaching the presidential election with deep anxiety about what could follow, including the potential for political violence, efforts to overturn the election results and its broader implications for democracy, a new poll shows.
The findings of the survey, conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, speak to persistent concerns about the fragility of the world’s oldest democracy, nearly four years after former President Donald Trump’s refusal to certify the 2020 election results. accept inspired a crowd. of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol in a violent attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power.
About four in 10 registered voters say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about violent attempts to overturn the results after the November election. A similar share is concerned about legal efforts to do so. And about 1 in 3 voters say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about efforts by local or state election officials to prevent the results from being finalized.
Relatively few voters – about a third or less – are “not very” or “not at all” concerned about this happening.
Trump has continued to lie about the fraud that cost him re-election four years ago and is again predicting that he can only lose this time if the election is rigged against him, a strategy he has employed since his first run for office. His allies and the Republican National Committee, which he reshaped, have filed lawsuits across the country that could be a possible prelude to post-election legal challenges if he loses.
“I thought that after January 6, 2021, the Republican Party would have the good sense to reject him as a candidate,” Aostara Kaye of Downey, California, said of Trump. “And because they didn’t, I think it just encouraged him to think he can do anything, and they’re still going to stick with him.”
Many voters think Trump will not concede if he loses
Trump’s all-out efforts to reject the will of voters and cling to power after his 2020 loss have raised concerns that he will again fail to concede if he loses to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Nearly nine in 10 voters said the loser of the presidential election will be obliged to concede once each state finishes counting its votes and the legal issues are resolved, including about eight in 10 Republicans. But only about a third of voters expect Trump to accept the results and concede if he loses.
Democrats and Republicans have very different opinions on this, with about two-thirds of Republican voters thinking Trump would concede, compared to only about 1 in 10 Democrats.
The same concern does not apply to Harris. Nearly eight in 10 voters said Harris will accept the outcome and concede if she loses the election, including a large majority of Republican voters.
Democrats and Republicans were divided over who would weaken democracy
Members of both parties are deeply concerned about how American democracy will fare depending on the outcome of the November election.
Overall, about half of voters believe Trump would weaken US democracy “a lot” or “somewhat” if he wins, while about four in 10 voters said the same about Harris.
Not surprisingly, Americans were deeply divided along ideological lines. About eight-in-ten Republicans said a new term for Trump would strengthen democracy “a lot” or “somewhat,” while a similar share of Democrats said the same about a Harris presidency.
About 9 in 10 voters in each party said the opposing party’s candidate would likely weaken democracy at least “somewhat” if elected.
Kaye, a retired health care worker, called Trump an “existential threat to the Constitution.” One prospect she says scares her is that if Trump wins, he likely won’t have the guardrails in his new administration that were in place in the previous administration.
Republican voter Debra Apodaca, 60, of Tucson, Arizona, said Harris poses a greater threat to democracy. She said President Joe Biden’s administration has over-prioritized foreign aid and shown a lack of concern for its own people.
‘We just send our tax money everywhere. It doesn’t stop here. Why don’t we take care of America?” she said. “Why should we pay taxes if all we do is send it away?”
That lack of concern extends to the border, she said, adding that a Harris win would be “the end of the Border Patrol.”
The January 6 attack on the Capitol is a dividing line
Part of what divides voters on their views of American democracy is the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and who is to blame. Democrats and independents are much more likely than Republican voters to place “a lot” or “quite a bit” of responsibility on Trump.
Susan Ohde, an independent voter from Chicago and a retiree from the financial industry, said she is concerned that “crazy people will buy the disinformation they are given,” leading to another such attack.
Giovanna Elizabeth Minardi of Yucaipa, California, said other issues are more important in this year’s election. She said her biggest concern is the economy and believes high prices, especially in her home state, are driving away businesses and creating a dependency on the government. It’s a dependency Harris wants to continue, said Minardi, a supporter of child and family services.
Views on the January 6 attack are not the only ones where voters are divided along ideological lines. Following Trump, a majority of Republicans claim that Biden was not legitimately elected. Nearly all Democrats and about seven-in-ten independents believe Biden was legitimately elected.
Other aspects of the political system are also divisive
This year’s presidential campaign has highlighted one aspect of the American political system that some say is undemocratic: the use of the Electoral College to choose the president instead of the popular vote. Trump and Harris have concentrated their campaign events and ads in seven battleground states that represent just 18% of the country’s population.
About half of voters think the possibility that a candidate could become president by winning the Electoral College but losing the popular vote is a “major problem” in U.S. elections. Like many other issues, the question also reveals a partisan divide: About two-thirds of Democrats say the potential for a vote split between the Electoral College and the population is a major problem, compared with about a third of the Republicans.
Debra Christensen, 54, a home health nurse and Democrat from Watertown, Wisconsin, is against the Electoral College that could give Trump the White House even if he loses the popular vote for a third time.
“Why can’t we, in this age of technology as it is, give one person one voice?” she said.
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The poll of 1,072 adults was conducted Oct. 11-14, 2024, using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for registered voters is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
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