Americans’ increased belief in voter fraud is a scary prospect in 2026

President Donald Trump messing with the 2026 midterms beforehand — as he’s trying to do by sharply restricting mail ballots — is only part of the potential threat he’s posing to US elections.

The other is his demonstrated tendency for claiming elections have been stolen after the fact, which resulted in the largest attack on the US Capitol in 200 years.

New polling suggests Trump has kept that soil fertilized with a large portion of the country. Indeed, the president on Friday posted on social media the 5-year-old video of him telling January 6, 2021, rioters to go home and repeating his false claim that he won in 2020.

And amid his repeated claims of widespread voter fraud, the polling suggests that soil might be even more fertile than its been in recent years, which is a scary prospect.

A Quinnipiac University poll shows a majority of registered voters (51%) are at least “somewhat concerned” that there will be widespread voter fraud in the upcoming election.

That’s actually 10 points higher than the same question in a poll conducted just before the 2022 midterm election .

The percentage today who say they are “very concerned” (29%) is also double-digits higher than it was four years ago (18%).

And the rise is overwhelmingly due to — no surprise — Republicans. The percentage who are at least “somewhat concerned” has risen from 59% to 74%, and the percentage who are “very concerned” has gone from 24% to 40%.

So even though 2022 was only a little removed from the fiasco after the 2020 election — in which large swaths of Trump’s base embraced his baseless claims of a stolen election, and some of them attacked the Capitol — concern about voter fraud is actually higher on the right today than it was back then.

(There has also been a small rise in concern among Democrats, but two-thirds of them say they are not that concerned.)

And this is not the only evidence that a large percentage of the electorate is primed to believe voter fraud could be a significant problem in 2026.

An AP-NORC poll released last week showed the percentage of Americans who trusted government certifications of election results at least “quite a bit” dropping from 40% in 2024 to 34% today.

A March poll conducted for NPR and PBS by Marist College found that 50% of Americans said voter fraud was likely in the 2026 elections. That’s similar to the 52% who said so in January 2020 , a year before the Capitol attack. (There was a slight drop in those who called it “very likely,” though.)

Republicans were also more likely to rank voter fraud as the biggest threat to American elections (57%) than they were six years ago (47%).

And a Reuters-Ipsos poll in April showed a pretty substantial belief in what is arguably Trump’s biggest voter fraud hobbyhorse these days: the baseless claim that many undocumented immigrants are voting in US elections.

The poll showed 46% of Americans, including 82% of Republicans, agreed that US elections include a “large number” of illegal votes by noncitizens.

And a 53% majority, including 83% of Republicans, were at least “somewhat concerned” about fraudulent mail-in or absentee ballots.

On both questions, only between 21% and 26% of Americans strongly embraced those positions. But there was another quarter of the population that was at least inclined toward them.

And that’s the danger here: a small but passionate group of people truly embraces the cause, just like they did after the 2020 election, while others who might not feel as strongly go along for the ride.

If there’s good news for our democracy, it’s that large numbers of Americans appear to be approaching Trump’s specific claims with at least a modicum of skepticism.

After his July primetime address full of unproven claims about foreign election interference and a supposed coverup, Quinnipiac found that registered voters said 66%-24% that he had not provided sufficient evidence to prove his claims.

Similarly, the AP poll this week showed 60% of Americans trust Trump to provide accurate information about the outcome of the 2026 election “only a little” (16%) or “not at all” (44%). Just 17% trust him at least “quite a bit.”

Indeed, the further away we got from the 2020 election, the more that even Trump’s election-denying supporters acknowledged there wasn’t actually solid evidence that the election was stolen.

And if Trump remains even more unpopular than he was when he lost the 2020 campaign — as he is now — perhaps fewer people will be inclined to truly embrace his claims of another stolen election.

But despite Trump’s tortured history of barking up this tree, three new polls show half of Americans or more are at least a little on board with the concept of significant voter fraud in the 2026 election.

And the GOP writ large also quickly embraced baseless suggestions of fraud after this year’s Los Angeles mayoral primary didn’t go their way.

It’s all rather inauspicious, given the recent history of elections that don’t go Trump’s way. And it’s worth paying attention to.

唐纳德·特朗普总统试图通过大幅限制邮寄选票来干预 2026 年中期选举，但这仅仅是他对美国选举构成的潜在威胁的一部分。

另一个问题是他事后声称选举被窃取的倾向，这导致了200年来美国国会大厦遭受的最大规模袭击。

最新民调显示，特朗普在全国大部分地区仍然保持着对他的支持。事实上，这位总统周五在社交媒体上发布了一段五年前的视频，视频中他于2021年1月6日告诉骚乱者“回家”，并再次重复了他关于自己赢得2020年大选的虚假说法。

尽管他一再声称存在广泛的选民欺诈，但民调显示，土壤可能比近年来更加肥沃，这是一个令人担忧的前景。

昆尼皮亚克大学的一项民意调查显示，大多数登记选民（51%）至少“有些担心”即将到来的选举中会出现大范围的选民欺诈。

实际上，这比 2022 年中期选举前进行的民意调查中同一问题的结果高出 10 个百分点。

如今表示“非常担忧”的人数比例（29%）也比四年前（18%）高出两位数。

不出所料，这一增长主要归因于共和党人。至少“有些担忧”的比例从59%上升到74%，而“非常担忧”的比例则从24%上升到40%。

因此，尽管 2022 年距离 2020 年大选后的惨败只有很短的时间——当时特朗普的大部分支持者接受了他毫无根据的选举舞弊指控，其中一些人甚至袭击了国会大厦——但如今右翼对选民欺诈的担忧实际上比当时更高。

（民主党人中也有少量人表示担忧，但三分之二的人表示他们并不太担心。）

而且，这并非唯一证据表明，很大一部分选民已经准备好相信，选民欺诈在 2026 年可能是一个重大问题。

上周公布的一项美联社-NORC民意调查显示，至少“相当”信任政府对选举结果认证的美国人比例从2024年的40%下降到目前的34%。

3月份由马里斯特学院为美国国家公共广播电台（NPR）和公共广播公司（PBS）进行的一项民意调查发现，50%的美国人认为2026年大选中很可能出现选民舞弊。这一比例与2020年1月持相同观点的52%相近，当时距离国会大厦袭击事件发生还有一年。（不过，认为“极有可能”出现舞弊的人数略有下降。）

共和党人也更有可能将选民欺诈列为美国选举的最大威胁（57%），而六年前这一比例为 47%。

路透社-益普索4月份的一项民意调查显示，相当一部分人相信特朗普如今最热衷的选民欺诈论调：毫无根据的说法，即许多非法移民正在美国大选中投票。

民调显示，46%的美国人（包括82%的共和党人）认为美国大选中存在“大量”非公民的非法投票。

53% 的大多数人（包括 83% 的共和党人）至少“有些担心”邮寄选票或缺席选票存在欺诈行为。

在这两个问题上，只有21%到26%的美国人强烈支持这些立场。但还有四分之一的人口至少倾向于这些立场。

这就是危险所在：一小群充满热情的人真正拥护这项事业，就像他们在 2020 年大选后那样，而其他一些可能感受没有那么强烈的人只是随波逐流。

如果说我们的民主制度有什么好消息的话，那就是大量的美国人似乎对特朗普的具体说法至少抱有一定程度的怀疑态度。

在他在7月份的黄金时段发表讲话后，昆尼皮亚克大学发现，登记选民以66%比24%的比例表示，他没有提供足够的证据来证明他的说法，而他本人并未提供足够的证据来证明他的说法。

同样，美联社本周的民调显示，60%的美国人对特朗普能否提供有关2026年大选结果的准确信息持“不太信任”（16%）或“完全不信任”（44%）的态度。只有17%的人至少“比较信任”他。

事实上，随着 2020 年大选时间的推移，就连特朗普否认选举结果的支持者也逐渐承认，并没有确凿的证据表明选举被窃取了。

如果特朗普的支持率比他在 2020 年竞选失败时还要低——就像他现在这样——那么或许会更少的人真正相信他关于选举再次被窃取的说法。

尽管特朗普曾多次就此问题大放厥词，但三项新的民意调查显示，至少有一半的美国人至少在某种程度上认同 2026 年大选中存在严重的选民欺诈这一概念。

而今年洛杉矶市长初选结果不如共和党所愿后，共和党整体也迅速接受了毫无根据的舞弊指控。

考虑到特朗普近期屡次败选的历史，这一切都显得相当不祥。值得我们关注。