Republicans’ faith in 2024 vote count low, poll finds
Few Republicans have high confidence that votes will be tallied accurately in next year’s presidential contest, suggesting years of sustained attacks against elections by former President Trump and his allies have taken a toll, according to a new poll.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that only 22% of Republicans have high confidence that votes in the upcoming presidential election will be counted accurately, compared with 71% of Democrats expressing high confidence — underscoring a partisan divide fueled by a campaign of lies about the 2020 vote.
As he runs for the White House a third time, Trump continues to claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Overall, 44% of Americans surveyed said they had “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the next election would be counted accurately.
Confidence in elections has risen among Democrats in recent years, but has dropped among Republicans. Ahead of the 2016 election, 32% of Republicans polled were highly confident that votes would be counted accurately. That share rose to 54% two years later, after Trump won the presidency.
But their confidence fell to 28% a month before the 2020 election as Trump signaled that the voting would be rigged, and now sits at 22%.
“I just didn’t like the way the last election went,” said Lynn Jackson, a nurse and registered Republican from Contra Costa County. “I have questions about it. I can’t actually say it was stolen — only God knows that.”
Trump’s claims were rejected by dozens of judges, including several he had appointed. Multiple reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states where Trump disputed his loss — including several overseen by GOP lawmakers — confirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
Even so, Trump’s claims led GOP-dominated states to pass new laws increasing voting restrictions, primarily by restricting mail voting and limiting or banning ballot drop boxes. Across the country, conspiracy theories related to voting machines prompted many Republican-controlled local governments to explore banning counting machines in favor of hand counts.
The AP-NORC survey found that political independents — a group that has consistently had low confidence in elections — were also largely skeptical about the integrity of the 2024 elections. Just 24% said they had the highest levels of confidence that the votes would be counted accurately.
Chris Ruff, a 46-year-old unaffiliated voter from Sanford, N.C., said he lost faith in elections years ago, believing they are rigged. He also sees no difference between the two major parties.
“I don’t vote at all,” he said. “I think it only adds credibility to the system if you participate.”
The conspiracy theories about voting machines, promoted through forums held around the country, also have taken a toll on confidence among Republicans even though there is no evidence to support the claims.
About 4 in 10 U.S. adults said they were highly confident that scanning paper ballots into a machine provides accurate counts. Democrats are about twice as confident in the process as Republicans — 63% compared with 29%. That marks a notable shift from a 2018 AP-NORC poll that found just 40% of Democrats were confident compared with 53% of Republicans.
Gillian Nevers, a 79-year-old retiree from Madison, Wis., has been a poll worker and said she had confidence — based on her experiences — in the people who oversee elections.
“I have never seen any shenanigans,” said Nevers, who votes Democratic. “The claims are unfounded and ridiculous.”
The conspiracy theories have led to death threats against election officials and an exodus of experienced workers.
Among other poll findings:
The poll of 1,220 adults was conducted June 22-26 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
