More than twice as many Republicans believe President Joe Biden’s electoral victory was the result of fraud than those who believe he won legitimately.
Only roughly a quarter of Republicans consider Biden’s victory to be “legitimate and accurate,” while 56% of respondents said Biden is president as a “result of illegal voting or election rigging,” according to a new poll from Ipsos/Reuters released on Monday. The remaining 19% of right-leaning respondents said they didn’t know.
The Republican respondents’ answers to the poll, which was conducted from May 17-19, show that former President Donald Trump’s efforts to question the legitimacy of the election results have worked to some degree.
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Following the poll’s release, Trump sent out a tweemail praising the Republican respondents who don’t believe Biden won legitimately.
“A new Ipsos/Reuters poll ‘Beliefs Among Republicans’ shows 53% believe Donald Trump is the true President (I always knew America was smart!),” he said. “2020 Election was tainted 56%. The Election was stolen (and Rigged!) 61%.”
More than half of Republican respondents, 53%, said they think Trump is the “true president,” while 61% of them believe the election “was stolen from Donald Trump.”
In the days and months after the election, Trump and his campaign began an effort to overturn the results of the election through lawsuits and by demanding recounts and audits. Though the efforts were unsuccessful in nearly every way, many of the former president’s supporters were left convinced that he was robbed of a second term.
In recognizing the drop in election confidence, Republican lawmakers have called for changes to the way elections are conducted. They say certain changes, such as limiting voting by mail, limiting drop boxes, and strengthening voter ID laws, would restore what was lost.
Eighty-seven percent of Republicans said passing such laws, such as Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Iowa have among other states, are either “somewhat” or “very” important to them, while 72% of them gave the same answers as to whether states have the “right” to make these changes.
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The poll included 2,007 respondents, and it has a credibility interval of about 4 percentage points.
