Poll Shows Further Decline in Americans’ Confidence in Election Integrity

Happy Friday! Election Day is 39 days away. Now’s your chance to grab one of your very own Trump watches, and you could pay as much as $100,000. The watches, which the former president promoted Thursday, are not directly sold by Trump or his business conglomerate and are not affiliated with his campaign, per the seller’s website. But they do use Trump’s brand under a “paid license agreement.”

Up to Speed

• A grand jury indicted multiple Iranians on charges related to an operation from that country that allegedly hacked into internal communications of former President Donald Trump’s campaign over the summer, Politico reported Thursday. Federal authorities said earlier this month that “Iranian malicious cyber actors” sent unsolicited emails to news outlets and to President Joe Biden’s campaign (when he was still in the race) containing stolen information from the Trump campaign. Hackers from the country allegedly tried unsuccessfully to hack into the Biden campaign as well.
• Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York this morning, two days after the former president accused the foreign leader of casting “little, nasty aspersions” toward him. Also on Wednesday, Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, criticized Zelensky for “telling the American taxpayers what they ought to do.” Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, met with Zelensky on Thursday.
• The National Republican Senatorial Committee is now spending money in ruby-red Nebraska, where incumbent GOP Sen. Deb Fischer is fending off an unexpectedly competitive challenge from independent Dan Osborn, an industrial mechanic and local union official who served in the Navy. “The NRSC will help Trump-endorsed Deb Fischer fight back against the left-wing smear campaign national Democrats are waging against her,” NRSC spokesman Mike Berg said in a statement shared with Dispatch Politics. A SurveyUSA poll released this week showed Osborn narrowly leading Fischer. But Republican insiders in Washington monitoring this race say Fischer has the lead. The NRSC’s support for the senator’s campaign is, they tell us, akin to political insurance, given the significant resources being invested in Nebraska on Osborn’s behalf, including by prominent Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
• Several New York Democratic House candidates on Thursday called on New York City Mayor Eric Adams to resign in the wake of his indictment on corruption charges. John Avlon, Mondaire Jones, Josh Riley, and Laura Gillen hope to unseat vulnerable Republicans in November, and all four made such statements. Gillen in particular used the news to hit her opponent, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, who reportedly kept his lover on his congressional payroll. Jones, Riley, and Gillen are all running in toss-up districts per the Cook Political Report, while Avlon’s is “likely Republican.”
• A trio of Kansas Republicans has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Fox News reports: former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, former state Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, and Deanell Reece Tacha, a retired federal judge. “This election presents a stark choice that is not easy for any of us,” the three said in a joint statement. “But, it requires Republicans speaking out and putting country over party when those values are at stake.”

Gallup Poll Finds Fewer GOP Voters Trust Election Results

The 2024 presidential election remains a toss-up by any reasonable metric. Polls show a tight race in all seven battleground states, and there are numerous plausible combinations of Electoral College victories for both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Partisans may not like the idea of their side losing the White House, but the truth is either Harris or Trump could win.

That’s what makes a new report about public confidence in election results from Gallup notable—and alarming. The storied public opinion polling firm has asked the same question every four years (except once, in 2012) since 2004: “How confident are you that, across the country, the votes for president will be accurately cast and counted in this year’s election?” That 2004 election year was a high-water mark for public confidence, with 72 percent of American adults saying they were either very or somewhat confident and just 21 percent saying they were “not too” confident and 6 percent saying they were not confident at all.

Twenty years later, Gallup has found, the picture has changed. While the majority of Americans still say they have confidence in the election’s integrity, the number of those who say they are either not too confident or not at all confident has risen considerably. Just 57 percent say they will be very or somewhat confident in the accuracy of the election results, with 24 percent saying they are not too confident and a whopping 19 percent saying they are not confident at all.

The finding suggests any of the possible outcomes could be viewed with suspicion by a significant number of Americans, but the partisan breakdown of this shift tells the bigger story: Republicans, after years of rhetoric from Trump, other elected officials, and conservative movement leaders, are the least likely to have confidence in the accuracy of elections. 

The suggestions by some political leaders that the election could be illegitimate have only intensified this year. In May, for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas pushed back on a question during an appearance on CNN about whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election unconditionally, finally relenting by saying, “If the Democrats win, I will accept the result, but I’m not going to ignore fraud regardless of what happens.” Two months later, Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation said during an event that “As things stand right now, there’s zero chance of a free and fair election.” 

And just this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson attached plenty of conditions when he was asked if he would “commit to observing regular order” in the certification of the Electoral College vote if Harris defeated Trump.

“Well, of course,” the Republican leader said, “if we have a free, fair and safe election, we’re going to follow the Constitution.”

It wasn’t always this way. In Gallup’s 2004 survey, it was Democrats’ relative lack of confidence bringing down those numbers, with just 59 percent saying they were very or somewhat confident, while 69 percent of independents and 87 percent of Republicans said the same thing. But over the past two decades, Republican confidence has plummeted, dropping to 57 percent in 2008, 44 percent in 2020, and now just 28 percent in 2024. Meanwhile, Democrats have reversed themselves from being the least confident to the most confident, with that figure up to 84 percent in 2024. (Independents have been relatively steady in their views, down from 2004 but nevertheless in the middle at 58 percent saying they are very or somewhat confident.)

There are some signs of more universal confidence, writes Gallup’s Lydia Saad: “Americans are far more positive about the integrity of the vote at their own polling place, as 76% say they are very or somewhat confident the votes will be accurately cast and counted there. While there is also a partisan difference on this question, it is much narrower, with 90% of Democrats, 71% of independents and 70% of Republicans confident.”

But that simply underscores how little trust there is among Republicans in this upcoming national election. Gallup found that roughly three quarters of Republicans say they think illegal or fraudulent voting and votes cast by ineligible voters will be a “major problem” in the upcoming election. The same number of Democrats, meanwhile, say they think it will be a major problem that candidates who lost will refuse to concede, a reasonable concern given Trump’s refusal to do so in 2020. 

Still, in anticipation of a possible loss, the Republican party’s institutions are gearing up to sow doubt about the results, focusing on the post-election legal fight at the expense of its get-out-the-vote efforts to actually win. And if Gallup’s numbers are to be believed, GOP leaders will find a sizable number of their own voters are ready to follow them down that path.

Eyes on the Trail

• President Joe Biden heads to Scranton, Pennsylvania, for an afternoon event, the details of which haven’t yet been announced. From Scranton, Biden heads to his seaside retreat in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
• Vice President Kamala Harris travels to Douglas, Arizona, for a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. She will “receive a briefing on operations and progress on disrupting the flow of fentanyl through the southern border” and deliver remarks afterward. From Arizona, Harris travels to San Francisco, where on Saturday she is scheduled to participate in an unspecified political event, after which she heads to Los Angeles. On Sunday, the vice president is set to participate in a second unspecified political event in Los Angeles, and then travels to Las Vegas, where she will host a campaign rally.
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, heads to Michigan Stadium, aka The Big House, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Saturday to attend the University of Michigan’s game against the University of Minnesota and “speak with students about the power of their vote and the importance of registering to vote ahead of the November election,” according to the campaign.
• Former President Donald Trump will deliver remarks on the economy Friday afternoon in Walker, Michigan. In the evening, Trump heads to Warren, Michigan, to host what his campaign is billing as a town hall meeting. On Saturday morning, Trump will deliver remarks in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where he will also meet with community leaders and residents to discuss the impacts of illegal immigration. And on Sunday afternoon, Trump will host a rally in Erie, a key battleground in all-important Pennsylvania.
• Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio will headline a town hall meeting in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, Saturday afternoon hosted by prominent Texas televangelist Lance Wallnau, a Trump supporter who has described the former president as “God’s chaos candidate.” In the evening, the Republican vice presidential nominee will head to Newtown, Pennsylvania, where he will headline a Trump campaign rally and discuss energy issues. 
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard headline a Trump campaign “Reclaim America Tour” event Saturday evening in Dearborn, Michigan. Kennedy, an ex-Democrat, waged an independent bid for president this year until he dropped out and endorsed Trump. Gabbard is a former Democrat who sought her old party’s presidential nomination in 2020.
• Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is scheduled Friday afternoon to headline a Trump campaign event at an undisclosed location that is focused on “black empowerment and financial literacy.” 
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Saturday will head to suburban Philadelphia to headline a Harris campaign event focused on reproductive rights. On Sunday, Shapiro will be in North Carolina campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Stein.

Notable and Quotable

“They never think about what might happen when the shoe is on the other foot.”

—Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Vice President Kamala Harris’ call to eliminate the filibuster in order to codify Roe v. Wade, September 26, 2024