A startling new poll finds that over half of Republican voters incorrectly consider Donald Trump to be the “true President,” nearly five months after he half-heartedly conceded the 2020 election.
In a Ipsos/Reuters poll released Friday, just over 2,000 U.S. adults from differing political parties were asked about their feelings towards the election results, the methods of voting, namely the absentee and mail-in ballots that Trump constantly called into question because they tend to swing to Democrats, and the voter suppression political action that has been taken in response to Trump’s baseless and unproven election fraud lies.
While 53 percent of the 754 Republican voters surveyed falsely believe Trump to be the “true President” right now, 47 percent voted for Joe Biden. However, 56 percent of Republicans believe Biden’s win was the result of “illegal voting or election rigging,” an unproven lie that Trump floated specifically in states where his opponent’s margin of victory was relatively close. When asked if the election was stolen from Trump, 39 percent of Republicans would say they “strongly agree” with the statement, while 22 percent said they “somewhat agree.”
Over the last few months, a number of states, such as Georgia, have passed legislation that places excessive restrictions on Americans’ right to vote.
Trump specifically targeted the counting of absentee and mail-in ballots for the reason behind his election loss and propagated several false conspiracy theories ranging from ballots getting dumped in rivers and creeks to illegal ballot stuffing. Republicans appear to align themselves with his beliefs with only 30 percent expressing confidence in the handling of the erroneously criticized method.
Unsurprisingly, 73 percent of Democrats believe Trump is at least partly to blame for the Capitol riots, 31 percent of Republicans baselesslythink the events of Jan. 6 was the work of violent left-wing protestors trying to make the former President look bad.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll that was reported on back in April found similar sentiments among Republicans with 60 percent believing Trump’s Big Lie that he lost the election because of voter fraud.
