(CN) — A new poll from Monmouth University reveals more Americans are becoming doubtful that America’s governmental system is up to snuff and think it may require some fundamental changes to get it back on track.
The poll, released Monday, comes just over a year after President Joe Biden was officially declared the victor of the 2020 presidential contest, a win that jumpstarted an avalanche of unfounded claims that widespread voter fraud played a decisive role in Biden’s victory.
While the numerous efforts to produce evidence of such claims have gone nowhere — including a GOP-backed review of the 2020 Arizona election results that found Biden won the state fair and square — distrust in American’s government has only seemed to grow as Biden approaches the end of his first year in the White House.
Now, Monday’s poll appears to confirm that very trend. Monmouth reports that 26% of Americans say our system is not terribly sound and needs several improvements, while another 30% say the system isn’t sound at all.
Those who maintain America’s system of government isn’t sturdy in the least and needs a significant overhaul sat at just 22% at the start of the year and largely hovered around that range during the tenure of former President Donald Trump. Four decades ago, that number was even lower at just 10%.
Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, says this discord is likely directly tied to the rampant spread of misinformation regarding the accuracy of the 2020 election outcome.
“The increase of distrust in the American system appears to be linked to the persistence of ‘the big lie,’” Murray said with the release of the poll. “The fact that this belief continues to get oxygen is having a serious, and potentially dangerous, impact on faith in our fundamental democratic processes.”
This theory falls in line with similar findings from the new Monmouth poll. Monday’s survey found that a third of the nation still feels like Biden only won the 2020 contest due to voter fraud, a number that has barely moved during the entire duration of the Biden administration thus far.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans say they feel this the most, with 73% of them still holding on to the notion that widespread voter fraud handed Biden the win.
Of the voters who say fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election, roughly half of them also say America’s system of government is not at all sound. Among the 6 out of ten voters who say Biden won fairly, just under a quarter of them say the same.
As for how Americans are willing to look at the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol moving forward, most Americans are largely on board with putting the power players under the microscope. Around 70% of Americans say they approve of having committees look into whether members of Congress or Trump himself played any major roles in the lead-up to the January riot.
Another 60% of voters are also willing to have the committees investigate the 2020 voter fraud claims. This includes nearly half of polled Democrats who say they are good with those claims being further explored, despite Democrats being historically overwhelmingly dismissive of the unsubstantiated claims.
Murray believes this openness to investigation comes from Democrats’ desire to finally put the voter fraud allegations to bed once and for all, but says such a dream is unlikely to come true.
“Democrats do not believe that Biden won through fraud, as the poll results clearly show,” Murray said. “The fact that nearly half want to see an investigation into possible fraud likely stems from their hopes that it would put the false claims to rest. But as the experience from the so-called Arizona audit shows, that outcome is highly unlikely and America will remain divided on this.”
According to the poll, Americans appear to think that worsening division is the path the nation is currently set upon. Around half say the country has become more divided since Biden took office, while just 12% say we’ve become more united. The remaining 38% say things are about the same now as they’ve always been.
Monday’s poll contained a sample size of 811 adults and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%.
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