A new national poll shows that even many of Donald Trump’s supporters believe he would threaten national and international security if elected president.
According to the Lincoln Leadership Initiative, a group founded by former Republican politicians and staffers, 65 percent of the 1,051 registered voters who participated in the SurveyMonkey poll released Friday predicted race riots would rage in American cities, a fear shared by 35 percent of Trump backers.
Forty-six percent of all voters and 22 percent of Trump supporters surveyed believed the candidate once best known for firing people on television would launch nuclear weapons against foreign threats.
Members of the conservative political group that sponsored the poll said the poll is evidence that the public shares their fears about the Republican presidential nominee’s leadership capabilities and policy proposals.
“This survey shows that Americans see a Trump presidency as a game of Russian roulette, except there’s a bullet in every chamber,” said Andrew Weinstein, former advisor to Newt Gingrich and Sen. Bob Dole, in a statement.
A little over half believed the country would default on its debt under Trump, and 33 percent of Trump supporters agreed. A majority of the registered voters thought Trump would use the powers of his office against a political opponent, order the military to target family members of terrorists and create a database to track all Muslims living in the country.
And 32 percent of the Republican presidential nominee’s supporters believed their chosen candidate would authorize internment camps for illegal immigrants.
“I’ve always believed that electing Trump creates unacceptable risks for America — to our security, to our economy and to our constitutional rights,” said James Gassman, a former under secretary of state for public diplomacy under President George W. Bush who has endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton. “This survey confirms that tens of millions of Americans have these same fears. As they should.”
The survey of 1,051 registered voters was conducted Sept. 16-21 and the margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent.
