Crisis of Confidence: How Election 2020 Was Different

This report examines new data from Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape and the Democracy Fund VOTER Survey (Views of the Electorate Research Survey) to better understand voter confidence in the 2020 presidential election. The data suggest that voter confidence in the 2020 election was indeed different — and that continued doubts about election integrity among many Republicans raise concerns about the future.

• The percentage of Trump voters in 2020 who said they were not at all confident that their vote was tallied accurately was more than four times as high as the percentage of Clinton voters who said the same in 2016 (35 percent vs. 8 percent). Tweet
• After the 2020 presidential election, three-quarters (75 percent) of Trump supporters said there was a lot of fraud happening with mail voting, while one in five (20 percent) said the same about in-person voting. Perceptions of fraud concerning both types of voting were higher than before the election (60 percent and 6 percent, respectively). Tweet
• A week after the 2020 presidential election, the overwhelming majority (93 percent) of Biden voters said they were confident that the election was conducted fairly and accurately, but only 29 percent of Trump voters said the same. There was almost no difference in confidence between these groups in the week before Election Day. Tweet
• After the 2020 presidential election, just 34 percent of Trump voters said they would accept Biden as a legitimate president. In both 2000 and 2016, those supporting the losing candidate were at least twice as likely to say they would accept the winner as the legitimate president (68 percent and 76 percent, respectively), according to Gallup. Tweet
• About six in 10 Americans (59 percent) said that permanent harm had been done to the United States as a result of the 2020 presidential election process. Tweet
• After the 2020 presidential election, a plurality (46 percent) of Republicans said that it would be appropriate for Republican state legislators to try to assign electoral votes to Trump in states won by Biden. Just 30 percent said it would be inappropriate. Tweet