Poll: Now Nearly Three-Quarters of Republicans Doubt Legitimacy of Biden's 2020 Win
Republicans, by a large margin, doubt the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.
A new poll from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that 71 percent of GOP voters do not believe Biden rightfully defeated former President Donald Trump.
Forty-six percent of Republican respondents said Biden’s win was “definitely not legitimate,” while an additional 25 percent believed it was “probably not legitimate.”
Conversely, 15 percent of Republicans thought Biden “probably” was the winner and 6 percent felt he “definitely” was.
Overall, 58 percent of Americans surveyed believe Biden was the rightful winner, including 91 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of independents.
The poll’s director — Tatishe Nteta, an associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst — argued that Republican leaders have contributed to the belief that the election was illegitimate.
“Given the continued questioning of Biden’s victory by prominent Republican elected officials, conservative media personalities and former President Trump, it is no surprise that 7 in 10 Republicans, conservatives and Trump voters view the results of the 2020 election with skepticism, if not outright disbelief,” Nteta said in a Tuesday news release.
Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll, said public officials have work to do to “shore up faith in how we vote.”
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“The top reason voters don’t think Biden’s victory was legitimate has to do with belief in fraud — 83% of the poll’s respondents cited fraudulent ballots being counted by election officials to help Biden win in several states,” he said. “Roughly the same percentage — 81% — claim that absentee ballots from dead people also helped him.”
The pollsters found that there is also a strong partisan divide in how people view the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion.
Eighty percent of Republicans surveyed described the events of that day as a “protest.” A majority — 55 percent — thought it was a riot.
The poll was conducted from Dec. 14 to Dec. 20 among 1,000 respondents nationwide. The margin of error was +/- 3.1 percentage points.
Joe Biden’s year in review pic.twitter.com/Nqob9WJKsg
— Abigail Marone ?? (@abigailmarone) December 28, 2021
Republican sentiment regarding the presidential election has been fairly consistent.
A USA Today/Suffolk University poll in February found that 73 percent of Trump voters did not believe Biden was legitimately elected.
73% of Trump voters think that President Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020, according to a new USA Today / Suffolk University poll.https://t.co/fSAIsWF9OF
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 24, 2021
Similarly, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released in July found that 66 percent of Republicans did not believe Biden fairly won.
