More than a third of Americans believe Biden is not the legitimate president
More than a third of Americans do not believe President Biden was legitimately elected in 2020, undermining his power base.
The Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, conducted last month, found that 36% of respondents believe President Biden's election was illegitimate, up 7 points from two years ago.
By comparison, 62% believe he was legitimately elected, down from 69% in 2021. This reflects the decline in his popularity.
Republicans saw the biggest drop in their belief in the president's validity, falling from 39% to 31%. Independents also saw a drop of 6 percentage points, from 72% to 66%, while Democrats saw a slight decline, from 94% to 91%.
Likewise, 33% of all adults said there is concrete evidence of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election. This includes 62% of Republicans, 33% of Independents and 10% of Democrats. In general, 63% denied the presence of evidence of fraud.
Election integrity is still a concern for citizens
The poll results match those of a CNN poll conducted in July 2023.
According to that poll, 38% of adults believed that President Biden legitimately did not win the 2020 election. This is the highest percentage giving this response among the eight polls the outlet conducted on this topic.
In contrast, 61% believe the President legitimately won enough votes to secure the presidency – a clear majority, but a new historic low.
While a majority (51%) of those who doubt President Biden's legitimacy said there is concrete evidence that he lost the election, 49% said that is just a hunch. These results mark a significant decline in the group's certainty compared to 2021, when 73% said there was strong evidence.
However, the results of both polls show that a significant portion of the public questions the validity of the 2020 election results, despite the insistence of some media outlets – including the Washington Post – that there is no evidence of fraud.
Former President Donald Trump, for his part, has claimed that the 2020 election was stolen, a claim he is currently defending in two separate criminal cases.
If American democracy wants to continue to provide at least a semblance of solidity, it must be able to provide solidity to the events of next November. In the Democrats' own interest, exotic forms of voting, such as postal voting, should be carefully monitored and regulated. Otherwise there is the risk that the majority of citizens will consider the votes illegitimate. What would be left then?
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The article More than a third of Americans believe Biden is not the legitimate president comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/piu-di-un-terzo-degli-americani-ritiene-che-biden-non-sia-il-legittimo-presidente/ on Sun, 07 Jan 2024 10:00:30 +0000.