WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump’s years-long campaign to undermine faith in US elections has gained broad traction with the American public, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows, potentially creating fertile ground for misinformation heading into the November midterm elections.
The six-day poll completed on April 20 showed sharp partisan divides over trust in elections, with solid majorities of Republicans saying fraud is widespread – despite a lack of evidence to support this claim – and favouring federal law enforcement presence at polls.
Some 46 per cent of respondents said they agreed with the statement that there are large numbers of fraudulent ballots cast by non-citizens in US elections, with 82 per cent of Republicans agreeing compared with 18 per cent of Democrats and 38 per cent of independents.
About 53 per cent of respondents said they were worried about fraudulent mail‑in or absentee ballots, compared with 43 per cent who said they were not, with partisan division again apparent: 83 per cent of Republicans expressed concern, versus 33 per cent of Democrats.
Taken together, the responses indicate that years of messaging by Mr Trump and his allies casting doubt on voting have resonated strongly with Republicans, particularly around claims that non‑citizens vote in significant numbers and that mail‑in ballots are unreliable, despite repeated audits and academic research finding fraud in either case to be exceedingly rare.
More broadly, the poll suggests that many Americans have been primed to accept claims of wrongdoing in November’s elections, when Democrats are favoured to win back the House of Representatives and control of the Senate will also be up for grabs amid voter discontent over the war with Iran and stubbornly high inflation.
Dr Kelly Rader, research director at States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group that works to safeguard free and fair elections, said the Reuters/Ipsos poll results point to the enduring impact of false claims made by Mr Trump and his allies.
“People are responding to them, particularly Republicans, because they’re listening to the leaders that they trust, and it’s creating this vulnerability in people to believe lies about the election,” Dr Rader said in an interview.
“It’s never fun to see these big partisan splits in beliefs like on non-citizen voting. But luckily, the system is built to withstand this, and states are ready for this year’s midterms.”
The online poll of 4,557 US adults, with a two percentage point margin of error, found bipartisan support for requiring voters to show official identification, with 77 per cent backing the idea, including 63 per cent of Democrats and 95 per cent of Republicans.
While the responses suggested broad sympathy with Mr Trump’s call for voter ID requirements, the poll did not address stricter Republican-proposed measures under debate in Congress.
The SAVE Act, which would require proof of US citizenship to register or update voter registration for federal elections, has passed the House but faces an uphill battle in the Senate amid Democratic warnings of disenfranchisement, even as 23 mostly Republican-led states have adopted provisions in the Bill.
The poll found that 63 per cent of Republicans believe Mr Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him – a share that has remained largely unchanged in recent years, despite the absence of evidence supporting his repeated claims of widespread fraud.
By comparison, only 9 per cent of Democrats and 21 per cent of independents said they believed Mr Trump lost in 2020 due to wrongdoing.
A bipartisan majority of Americans, including 79 per cent of Democrats and 71 per cent of Republicans, said they are generally confident their ballots will be counted in elections – a finding Dr Rader pointed to as a silver lining in the poll.
“These conspiracy theories about elections have not caused people to lose faith that their own vote will be counted as they intended,” Dr Rader said, adding that her organisation’s research shows this confidence is closely tied to voter turnout.
In a January interview with The New York Times, Mr Trump said he regretted not deploying the National Guard to seize voting machines in the 2020 election, and said that Republicans “ought to nationalise the voting” during an an appearance on former Federal Bureau of Investigation deputy director Dan Bongino’s podcast in February.
The poll found limited support for that idea, with only 28 per cent of Americans backing the deployment of troops to polling places. Republicans were split, with 45 per cent in favour and 54 per cent opposed.
At the same time, 62 per cent of Republicans supported having federal law enforcement present at polling places, compared with 23 per cent of Democrats and 36 per cent of independents. REUTERS