With simply days till Election Day, former President Donald Trump and the Republican Occasion’s closing message is that any Democratic win would be the results of dishonest — and new polling exhibits their voters consider them.
In current months, Trump and the GOP have promoted “Swamp the Vote,” a web site that requires Trump supporters to do their half to “assure we win by greater than the Margin of Fraud” by voting early. The location is paid for by the Republican Nationwide Committee.
“We’d like ALL HANDS ON DECK to defeat Kamala Harris and the far left liberals large cash fraud machine,” it declares. “We should SWAMP THEM WITH VOTES to ensure our victory is TOO BIG TO RIG.”
A video embedded within the web site options Trump saying, “Maintain your eyes open, as a result of these folks wish to cheat, and so they do cheat, and admittedly, it’s the one factor they do effectively.”
“The way in which you win is to swamp them,” Trump provides within the video. “If we swamp them, they’ll’t cheat. It simply doesn’t work out.”
Solely 57% of Trump supporters mentioned they consider this November’s elections will likely be run and administered considerably or very effectively, according to polling of registered voters that the Pew Research Center released Thursday — in comparison with 90% of Harris supporters. Forty-two % of Trump supporters believed the elections can be run “not too effectively” or “under no circumstances effectively.”
Each teams had excessive confidence in election directors in 2018, Pew’s historic information exhibits, however a dramatic cut up between the Democratic and Republican candidate supporters developed in 2020 and has solely grown wider since.
There was an identical cut up in confidence that mail-in and absentee ballots will likely be counted as voters supposed, with 85% of Harris supporters assured the counts will likely be correct in comparison with 38% of Trump supporters.
Voters have been additionally cut up, although much less dramatically, on how assured they have been that in-person votes will likely be counted precisely, that state election officers and native ballot employees will do job and that U.S. election programs are safe in opposition to cyberattacks.
Trump supporters have been additionally far much less assured than Harris supporters that there can be a transparent winner of the election in any case votes are counted — simply 58% believed that might be the case, in comparison with 85% of Harris supporters.
Notably, Trump supporters have been extra prone to say that the Supreme Court docket can be “politically impartial” in selections concerning authorized challenges to the presidential election, with 34% extraordinarily or very assured, versus simply 6% for Harris supporters. The courtroom at present leans conservative, with six justices appointed by Republican presidents — together with three Trump appointees — and three justices appointed by Democrats.
The Pew ballot mirrored a survey of 4,025 registered voters from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, 2024, both on-line or by telephone, and weighted to signify inhabitants demographics, partisan affiliation, schooling and different elements. Respondents have been members of Pew’s American Traits Panel, described as “a gaggle of individuals recruited by way of nationwide, random sampling of residential addresses who’ve agreed to take surveys commonly.”
Trump has by no means unconditionally mentioned he would settle for the election outcomes.
In June, throughout his CNN debate with President Joe Biden, he refused to say outright that he’d settle for the outcomes of the election in any case authorized challenges are exhausted. As a substitute, after a number of prods from moderator Dana Bash, Trump mentioned, “If it’s a good and authorized and good election, completely,” earlier than regurgitating his lies in regards to the 2020 election: “I might have a lot quite accepted these, however the fraud and the whole lot else was ridiculous.”
Final month, requested if he would certify the election ought to Harris win, Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) replied, “Effectively after all — if now we have a free, truthful and protected election, we’re going to observe the Structure. Completely.”
As shops together with Politifact, The Washington Post and Axios have documented, Trump has spent months emphasizing the identical lie he advised in 2020: that the only way he will lose is that if the election is rigged. (He used the same line in 2016.)
In August, he said at a North Carolina rally that “now we have all of the votes we’ll want” however that Democrats “are going to cheat like hell to win the election as a result of they haven’t any bounds.”
Last month, he mentioned that if “there was no dishonest — if God got here down from on excessive and mentioned ‘I’m going to be your vote tabulator for this election,’ I would go away this podium proper now.” He separately told the Fraternal Order of Police, “Look ahead to the voter fraud, as a result of we win with out voter fraud, we win so simply.”
“We have now to have a landslide as a result of they cheat so rattling a lot,” he added.
On Fact Social, he baselessly accused Democrats of utilizing navy and abroad ballots to cheat — rhetoric that the Republican Occasion has backed up with lawsuits concentrating on these voters.
Maybe the one exception to Trump’s rhetoric about stolen elections got here Monday, when he was asked if he’d seen any “incidents of dishonest that lead you to consider that this election is not going to be truthful.” Trump replied by saying, “I haven’t.”
However he wasn’t finished.
“Sadly, I do know the opposite aspect, and they aren’t good.”
