Republicans Increasingly Realize There’s No Evidence Of Election Fraud—But Most Still Think 2020 Election Was Stolen Anyway, Poll Finds

Topline

The share of Republicans who believe President Joe Biden didn’t legitimately win the 2020 election and there’s “solid evidence” to prove it has plunged over the past two years, a new CNN/SSRS poll finds, suggesting Republicans are increasingly realizing there’s no solid proof of the election fraud claims pushed by the far right—but still aren’t changing their minds about the election being “stolen.”

Key Facts

The CNN poll, conducted March 8-12 among 1,045 Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, found 63% of respondents believe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, while 37% believe he did.

Of that 63%, only 52% say they think there’s “solid evidence” the election was stolen, while 48% say they’re going based on “suspicion only.”

That marks a significant decrease in the share of Republicans believing there’s evidence of fraud: 61% thought there was evidence of fraud in October 2022, the last time the question was asked, which was already down from a high of 75% who said there was proof the election was stolen in January 2021.

The share of Republicans who generally believe the election was stolen has been steadier—suggesting GOP respondents are changing their minds about evidence, but still concluding there was fraud anyway—with 63% also believing Biden didn’t legitimately win the election in October 2022, down from 71% in January 2021.

Whether or not respondents thought the election was stolen and there was evidence to prove it was largely split along ideological lines, with moderate Republicans much more likely to say the election results were legitimate—and, if they believed it was stolen, that their belief was based on suspicion only—while more conservative Republicans were more likely to say there’s solid evidence of fraud.

Surprising Fact

The biggest predictors of whether or not Republicans believed there’s proof of election fraud are their age, income and educational status. Younger voters were more likely to be going based on suspicion only, with 47% of those under age 45 saying there was solid evidence versus 55% of those over age 45. Those earning less than $50,000 annually were more likely to buy into the claims of evidence, with 55% saying there’s proof versus 50% of those earning more than $50,000. In contrast, respondents who were better educated were actually more likely to believe evidence of alleged fraud: 55% of white respondents with a college degree said there’s proof of fraud, versus 50% who aren’t college educated.

Key Background

Former President Donald Trump and his allies pushed claims of widespread election fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 election that gained widespread traction on the right, including claims pushed by far-right attorney Sidney Powell and others that claimed voting machines by Dominion Voting Systems “flipped” votes from Trump to Biden. There has not been any concrete evidence to prove those claims: Every lawsuit that sought to overturn the election results failed in court—with a judge finding Powell’s case in Michigan alleging fraud was based on “nothing but speculation and conjecture”—and numerous election audits and analyses have concluded the results were legitimate. Trump and many of his supporters have continued to push the fraud claims anyway, though there have also been a growing number of admissions by major figures on the right of the fraud claims not being true. Powell acknowledged the claims she pushed were “perhaps” true in a court filing after Dominion sued her for defamation, for instance, and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis recently acknowledged in court she made “misrepresentations” by publicly claiming the election was stolen. Dominion has also sued Fox News for defamation, and court filings made public in the case have shown repeated instances of Fox anchors and executives—including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Rupert Murdoch—acknowledging either in text messages or depositions they did not believe the fraud claims about Dominion machines.

Tangent

The CNN poll also tracked a variety of Republican opinions about the upcoming 2024 race, finding a 40% plurality of respondents favor Trump in 2024 while 36% would rather vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president. The poll also found only 30% of Republicans believe the country’s best days are ahead of it—down from 77% in 2019, when Trump was president—as Republicans are increasingly getting turned off of the nation’s diversity. More than a third of respondents (38%) said they believe the “increasing number of people of many different races, ethnic groups, and nationalities” in the U.S. is “threatening” American culture rather than enriching it, which is up from 20% in 2019, and 78% say Americans’ “values on gender identity and sexual orientation” are “changing for the worse.”

Further Reading

CNN Poll: Most Republicans care more about picking a 2024 GOP nominee who agrees with them on issues than one who can beat Biden (CNN)

‘A Demonic Force’: The Most Explosive Comments Fox News Stars—Carlson, Ingraham, Hannity—And Murdoch Made About Trump And The 2020 Election (Forbes)

‘No Evidence’ Of Election Fraud In Battleground States, Statistical Analysis Finds As Trump Continues False Claims (Forbes)

GOP Pushing For Arizona-Style Election Audits To Spread Nationwide — But State Officials Already Keep Finding ‘No Evidence’ Of Fraud (Forbes)

Wisconsin Conservative Group Finds ‘No Evidence Of Widespread Fraud’ In 2020 Election (Forbes)