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Poll Finds Sharp Divide on Election Integrity After Biden Win

A new survey conducted a week after the election found Trump supporters’ suspicions of voter fraud and election corruption have only strengthened since Joe Biden’s victory and most respondents think the presidential transition will be rocky.

(CN) — A new survey conducted a week after the election found Trump supporters’ suspicions of voter fraud and election corruption have only strengthened since Joe Biden’s victory and most respondents think the presidential transition will be rocky.

The Pew Research Center asked 11,818 American adults — 10,399 of whom said they voted in the presidential election — questions about how the election was administered, the behavior of incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and incoming Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, and other key policy issues.

Researchers found that four-fifths of voters said votes cast in person were correctly counted, but just under six in 10 said the same of absentee and mail-in ballots.

Only one-fifth of Trump’s supporters expressed confidence in how elections were conducted across the U.S. By contrast, nearly 95% of Biden supporters said elections were well administered.

This massive gulf between the candidates’ supporters appears again when voters were asked whether their own vote was accurately counted. Only 35% of Trump supporters were very confident that their vote was properly counted, while 82% of Biden voters said the same of their own ballots.

A majority of voters overall (57%) would prefer to see the Trump campaign end its numerous and largely baseless claims of election fraud in states such as Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s supporters are the most supportive of those efforts, as 85% of them said the lawsuits should continue.

Perhaps this is one reason that 54% of all voters rated Trump’s post-election conduct as “poor,” while 62% said that Biden’s conduct was “good” or “excellent.”

Very few voters believe the executive branch will smoothly transition from Trump’s presidency to Biden’s. A minority of Trump voters (35%) are confident in a smooth transition, about twice as large as the share of Biden voters (16%) who agree.

With the U.S. Capitol building in the background, people walk during an anti-Trump march Saturday Nov. 14, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The data suggests that the incoming Democratic president had trouble building confidence in his presidency, even among his supporters. A little more than half (54%) of Biden voters say their vote was more “against Trump” than “for Biden,” while more than three-quarters of Trump voters describe their vote as “for Trump,” compared to the 24% who said they voted more “against Biden.”

The pollsters also asked voters about key policy issues, namely the economy and the coronavirus pandemic, revealing more partisan divides.

There is widespread agreement, however, that more government aid is needed to provide relief from Covid-19. Almost all Biden voters (94%) said another economic assistance package is necessary, and 61% of Trump voters agreed, for a total of 80% of all respondents.

On the other hand, two-thirds of Biden voters said there should be more restrictions on public activity in their area, while only 16% of Trump voters felt the same way about where they’re living.

Democrats are cheerier in their evaluation of the economy’s trajectory. Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents mostly agreed, six-in-10, that the economy will be doing better in a year, though less than a quarter of Republicans and Republican-leaning felt the same.

That’s a notable post-election shift, given that an October Pew survey found that 65% of Republicans said the economy would get better over the next year, and only 42% of Democrats agreed then. It appears the race’s outcome has changed many Americans’ minds.

The new survey was conducted between Nov. 11–17. The margin of error for responses from those who voted in the election is plus or minus 1.4 percentage points. The margin of error for all respondents is 1.6 percentage points.

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Categories / Government, National, Politics

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