Poll: Nearly 6 in ten Republicans say they will non vote for any candidate who admits Biden won 'fair and square'

Andrew Romano
Joe Biden, with one hand on a Bible held by his wife and the other hand raised, is sworn in president.
Joe Biden is sworn in every bit president on Jan. twenty, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/Puddle via Reuters)

Despite a mountain of evidence showing the 2020 presidential competition wasn't rigged against Donald Trump, nearly 6 in ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (57 percentage) now say they volition not vote in upcoming elections for any candidate who admits that Joe Biden won the presidency "fair and foursquare."

Just 17 pct say they would consider voting for a candidate who accurately characterizes Biden's victory every bit legitimate.

These numbers underscore the degree to which Trump'due south "big lie" claiming Biden cheated his way into the White Firm — a falsehood that three-quarters of Trump voters (74 pct) now believe — has get a litmus exam for the entire GOP, crowding out other issues and strengthening Trump's grip on the political party ahead of the 2022 midterms.

For his office, Trump has made information technology clear that supporting his election fabrications is fundamental to his own personal endorsement. Indeed, the former president is backing master candidates against country officials who bucked his attempts to overturn the ballot.

The poll data also helps explicate why Republican presidential hopefuls such equally Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now want to spend millions of dollars on special "election crimes" police units tasked with finding fraud where they previously insisted at that place was none.

"The style Florida did information technology, I call back, inspired conviction," DeSantis said immediately after the 2020 election. "That's how elections should be run."

The survey of 1,568 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Jan. 20 to 24, found that when asked which issue they want future candidates to focus on the most, the share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say "stopping Democrats from rigging and stealing elections" (17 percent) — something that Democrats are not doing — is statistically equivalent to the share who say "bringing down aggrandizement" (19 percentage).

A flag reads: Stop the Steal.
A flag at a entrada rally with President Donald Trump and Sen. Kelly Loeffler in Dalton, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021, the eve of Georgia's Senate runoff election. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Other core bourgeois policies don't even come close: "ending COVID restrictions" (x percent), "fighting law-breaking" (8 percent), "outlawing abortion" (5 percent), "cut taxes" (five per centum), "appointing Supreme Court justices" (2 percentage) and "giving parents more controls over schools" (2 percent). Only "securing the border" (23 percentage) ranks higher.

Likewise, if the GOP wins control of Congress in November, 56 per centum of Republicans say they desire the party to launch however another investigation of the 2020 presidential election — twice the number (28 percent) who say the contrary.

Trump remains the GOP'south well-nigh powerful and influential figure. Looking ahead, 56 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners say Trump's endorsement is more important than that of "other Republican leaders" (23 percent) when they are deciding how to vote. Half (fifty percentage) say Trump was "the best Republican president" — far ameliorate than George H.W. Bush (4 percent) and his son George W. Bush-league (9 percent), and significantly better even than conservative icon Ronald Reagan (37 percent). Eighty-two per centum rate Trump favorably, and 83 percentage say they would vote for him in a rematch with Biden.

For the broader population of voters, Biden's chore approval rating continues to sink. Fifty-three percent of Americans disapprove of how he's handling the presidency, compared with 40 percent who corroborate, and a mere ii points now dissever him (42 percent) and Trump (xl percent) in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup. In the Dec. 13 Yahoo News/YouGov poll, Biden (45 per centum) led Trump (38 percent) by 7.

President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address to Congress in 2018 as Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan applaud.
Trump delivers his start Country of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Jan. thirty, 2018. (Win McNamee/Pool via Reuters)

There are signs that at least some Republicans are open to alternatives to Trump. More than a quarter (27 percent) say he should not run once more. Sixteen percent say they would consider voting for centrist West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin if he were to run for president as an independent, more the number of Democrats (ten per centum) or independents (fifteen percent) who say the same. And 21 percent already say they would vote for DeSantis over Trump in the GOP primary; other potential candidates — including former Vice President Mike Pence (6 percentage), former U.N. Administrator Nikki Haley (vi percent) and Pull a fast one on News host Tucker Carlson (2 percent) — combine for some other 19 pct of the vote, and 12 pct say they're not sure.

DeSantis'due south unfavorable rating amid Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (12 percent) is too lower than Trump'southward (15 percent). More than than half (51 percent) rate the Florida governor "very" favorably, on par with the far more familiar Trump (57 per centum).

As a result, less than one-half of Republicans and GOP-aligned independents (46 percentage) currently say they would vote for Trump in the 2024 GOP primaries. Still, information technology's worth noting how close that number is to the 45 percent of the popular vote that Trump won beyond all Republican primaries in 2016 — enough to secure him the nomination and ultimately propel him to the White Firm.

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The Yahoo News survey was conducted past YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,568 U.S. adults interviewed online from Jan. xx to 24, 2022. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Demography, likewise as 2020 presidential vote (or nonvote) and voter registration condition. Respondents were selected from YouGov'due south opt-in console to be representative of all U.Southward. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.8 percent.