With a week until Election Day, many Americans say they are worried about violence over the outcome, according to a survey released Monday.
The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 41 percent of registered voters are “extremely” or “very” concerned about violent attempts to overturn the election results, while another 35 percent said they are “somewhat” concerned.
Just 23 percent said they are not very concerned or not at all concerned about the possibility.
The survey results come nearly four years after a presidential contest marked by widespread yet unfounded allegations of electoral fraud. Hundreds of supporters of former President Trump later breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to stop Congress’s certification of the President Biden’s 2020 electoral win.
Trump, now in his third White House bid, is locked in a razor-tight battle with Vice President Harris both nationally and in the major battleground states that will determine which candidate wins a majority in the Electoral College needed to secure the presidency.
The Hill / Decision Desk HQ polling tracker shows the race neck-and-neck nationally with Harris at 48.5 percent to Trump’s 48 percent. The two have been jockeying for support in key swing states as they try to map out a path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win.
Trump is a slight favorite based on current forecasts but the race remains a toss-up as polling in swing states Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin remains within the margins of error, according to DDHQ polling analysts.
The Republican nominee has continued to baselessly claim that the 2020 election was stolen and has increasingly raised questions about the integrity of this year’s outcome if he loses again.
Trump took to his Truth Social platform last week to again blast what he called the “Cheating and Skullduggery” in the last election.
“Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” he wrote. “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
Nearly two-thirds of the voters surveyed in the AP/NORC poll, 65 percent, said they don’t believe Trump will accept the election results and concede if he loses, while 77 percent said they believe Harris will concede if she loses.
On top of the concerns about violence, 37 percent of the voters surveyed said they are concerned about possible legal efforts to upend the election’s outcome, and 32 percent said they worry that local or state officials will attempt to prevent the results from being finalized in their jurisdictions.
About a quarter of registered voters surveyed in the AP/NORC poll said they expect inaccuracies in the vote counts across the country. Nearly half of voters, 47 percent, said they were confident the overall outcome would be accurate and fair, with voters expressing more confidence about the outcome in their state (55 percent) and locally (59 percent).
The AP/NORC poll surveyed 1,072 adults between Oct. 11-14 with an overall margin of error of 4.03 percentage points and 4.2 points among registered voters.
