About nine months ago, Congress officially certified President Joe Biden’s victory over former President Donald Trump in the 2020 general election. But a new poll suggests a significant number of Americans still have doubts about those results.
According to a poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico from Oct. 22-24, 35 percent of registered voters believed the 2020 presidential election results should be overturned.
Twenty-two percent of respondents said the results should definitely be overturned, and 13 percent said they probably should. Of the remaining voters polled, 12 percent said the results should probably not be overturned, 43 percent said they definitely should not be and 11 percent had no opinion.
While more Americans still believe the results should not be overturned, 35 percent is a pretty large subsection. The feeling is certainly not exclusive to far-right extremists.
Among respondents who said they were Republican or leaned Republican, 58 percent said the 2020 presidential election results should be overturned. Only 14 percent of Democrats or Democrat-leaning voters felt that way.
While these poll responses are not proof the election was stolen, they do show that major doubts still exist among many Americans. These doubts are also shown in responses to another question from the poll asking voters if they believed the 2022 elections will be free and fair.
Among all voters, 57 percent said they believed the elections would be free and fair, while 31 percent said they did not believe that. When broken down by party, the responses looked much different.
For voters who were Democrats or leaned Democrat, 76 percent felt the 2022 elections will be free and fair. Only 13 percent felt they would not be free and fair, and 10 percent didn’t know or had no opinion.
In contrast, just 38 percent of Republicans felt the elections would be free and fair. By comparison, 48 percent said they did not believe the elections would be fair, and 13 percent had no opinion.
Leftists would certainly argue that partisan divide is due to “election misinformation” from Republican politicians, and that certainly may have contributed to Republican voters’ election doubts. However, it is not the only factor.
The establishment media’s intense criticism of anyone who has expressed doubts about the election is undoubtedly another factor. There has been no evidence sufficient to overturn the election proven in a court of law, but even if there had been, it seems reasonable to assume that the establishment media would not have reported on it.
Major American news outlets have proven their allegiance to the Democratic Party time and time again. They have attempted to cover up potentially harmful content to Democratic candidates (such as Hunter Biden’s various scandals), and many Republicans feel they would cover up a stolen election, too.
In addition, it was not until Biden won the election that Democrats suddenly became so confident in it. It was not so long ago that Democrats were spending years investigating false claims of Russia rigging the 2016 election in favor of Trump.
Even in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Biden himself was sowing doubt about the potential results. According to a July 2020 article from Reuters, Biden said countries like Russia and China may be trying to affect the results.
“We know from before, and I guarantee you that I know now, because now I get briefings again — the Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. Fact,” he said.
In addition, he suggested China was involved in actions “designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome” of the then-upcoming presidential election.
Yet after Biden won the election, the left suddenly became fully confident in the election process and mocked anyone who disagreed with them.
Whether or not their feelings are validated, the fact is that many Americans have doubts about the election system in the United States. In order for our democracy to work effectively, we need to see significant action taken to quell those concerns and boost overall trust in elections.