Poll: 70 percent of Republicans don’t believe election was free and fair

Seventy percent of Republicans say they don’t think that President-elect Joe Biden won a “free and fair” election, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll.

The response marks a stark increase from the 35 percent of GOP voters who said they felt the election would not be fair before Election Day last Tuesday.

Ninety-six percent of Democrats surveyed said they had trust in the election process and thought it was free and fair, up considerably from the 52 percent of party voters who said they thought it would be before the election.

An overwhelming majority of respondents overall, 69 percent, said they thought the country was going in the wrong direction despite the election results.

Republican respondents expressed specific worries and concerns about election integrity in contested battleground states like Pennsylvania, which was still counting votes Tuesday. 

Sixty-two percent of Republicans said the Pennsylvania results would be unreliable, contrasting with 8 percent of Democrats who held the same beliefs.

Distrust is similarly high about Wisconsin (55 percent), Nevada (54 percent), Georgia (54 percent) and Arizona (52 percent), with suspicion being amplified by the Trump campaign, which has filed more than a dozen lawsuits in contested battleground states.

Still, most Republicans are skeptical any disputes will change the reality of President-elect Joe Biden’s eventual transition to the White House, as 38 percent of those surveyed said they believe the results will be overturned and 45 percent say that is unlikely.

Most respondents labeled economic decisions, national security defenses, and health care issues as their top priority considered when voting for a president.

A majority of responders disapproved of Trump’s job as president during his first term, with 58 percent saying they disapproved and 40 percent approving of his job in office.

Forty-nine percent of respondents in the survey said they leaned Democratically. In contrast, 40 percent said they were Republican-leaning.

The Politico/Morning Consult poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.