Republican voters side with Mike Pence over former President Donald Trump on the question of whether the former vice president could have “overturned” the 2020 election during congressional certification, according to a fresh poll.
Trump claims Pence could have altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, ensuring both of them a second term, had he blocked President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory by refusing to tally certified slates of electors submitted from certain states. The former president insists his vice president had the constitutional right to take such action.
Pence insists Trump is “wrong” — that the Constitution does not essentially empower the vice president to determine the outcome of the presidential election during the congressional certification process.
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And, in a national poll from Quinnipiac University released Wednesday, 52% of self-identified Republicans said Pence’s position is “closer in line to their way of thinking” than Trump’s.
Thirty-six percent of Republicans surveyed said they tend to agree with Trump.
“Could Pence have overturned the election as ordered by Trump? Pence said no, and a large majority of voters agree, including 52 percent of Republicans, exhibiting a rare break in the GOP lockstep with Trump,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.
Among all voters, 72% agreed with Pence, according to the Quinnipiac poll, with just 17% siding with Trump.
As the Jan. 6, 2021, congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory approached, Trump badgered Pence, publicly and privately, to reject state-certified elector slates from six battleground states won narrowly by Joe Biden. Pence refused.
In the months since, Trump has continued to harangue the former vice president over his decision, saying he lacked the courage to do what was right.
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Pence finally responded, saying in recent weeks that the former president is wrong on the matter and that neither the law nor the Constitution imbues the vice president with the authority to do as Trump claims. Pence is mulling a 2024 presidential bid.
