Americans agree democracy is at risk — but not on which party is to blame, poll finds
A majority of Americans agree democracy is at risk — but they’re divided on which party is to blame, according to a new poll.
The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Nov. 1 found 81% of respondents believe “there is a serious threat to the future of our democracy” but were evenly divided on whether Republicans or Democrats pose the bigger threat. The poll also found that a slimmer majority of respondents trust that elections in the U.S. are fair.
The Oct. 18-22 poll included 1,209 adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
It comes ahead of key elections in a few states and as the 2022 midterms cycle nears, PBS NewsHour notes. It also comes nearly a year after the 2020 presidential election, the aftermath of which left former President Donald Trump and others refusing to accept the outcome while touting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in an attempt to challenge the results in multiple battleground states.
Additionally, in the months following the 2020 election, lawmakers in multiple Republican-led states passed changes to their election laws — specifically to restrict mail-in voting after a record number of Americans cast absentee ballots as the coronavirus pandemic made the safety of in-person voting questionable.
Threats to democracy
The 81% of respondents who said they believe there is a “serious threat” to democracy included 89% of Republicans, 80% of independents and 79% of Democrats, the poll found.
But when asked which political party is the bigger threat to democracy, respondents were evenly split: 42% said the Democratic party while 41% said the Republican party is the bigger threat.
Another 8% said both parties are a threat and 5% said neither are the bigger threat.
Answers on which party is the bigger threat largely fell along party lines. While 87% of Democrats surveyed said the Republican party is the bigger threat, 88% of Republicans said the same of the Democratic party. Among independents, 41% said the Democratic party and 37% said the Republican party is the bigger threat.
“We have one point of bipartisan agreement that the ship is sinking,” Edward Foley, director of the election law program at Ohio State University, said, according to PBS NewsHour. “But the problem is that each side blames the other for the ship sinking.”
Trust in elections
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they have a “great deal” or “good amount” of trust that elections are fair. But 39% said they have “not very much” or no trust that they are fair, the poll found.
When asked what the biggest threat is to fair elections, 29% said voter suppression, 21% said voter fraud, 18% said “vote tampering by the opposing political party,” 14% said interference from another country and 13% said “vote tampering by local election officials.”
Overall, the poll found that Republicans were more likely to doubt election integrity at “every level.”
While 86% of Democrats say they have a “great deal” or “good amount” of trust that elections are fair, 34% of Republicans said the same. Among independents, 60% said the same.
After Trump lost the election to President Joe Biden, he consistently and repeatedly touted unsupported claims that the election was rigged and stolen from him despite election officials saying the election was secure. On Jan. 6, a mob of his supporters laid siege on the U.S. Capitol shortly after a rally at which Trump repeated false claims about the election and urged his supporters to “be strong” and march on Capitol Hill.
The poll found 62% of respondents believe Trump has continued to tout false claims that the election was rigged “mostly because he just doesn’t like the outcome,” while 34% said it’s mostly because they think he was right.
But 70% of Americans — including 86% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans — agree that candidates “do more harm than good to democracy” when they refuse to concede after a loss.
When respondents were asked how confident they are that their “state or local government will conduct a fair and accurate election in 2022,” 70%, including 91% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans, said they are confident. Meanwhile, 29% — including 39% of Republicans and 9% of Democrats — said they are not confident.
When respondents were asked if they would trust that the results were accurate “if your candidate for Congress does not win in 2022,” 71% said yes and 22% said no.
Among Democrats, 88% said yes and 8% said no. Meanwhile, 53% of Republicans said yes and 36% said no.
This story was originally published November 1, 2021 at 9:32 AM with the headline "Americans agree democracy is at risk — but not on which party is to blame, poll finds."
