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2020 Election Doubts: Extreme or Mainstream Opinion?

August 24, 2022

Nearly two years into the Biden presidency, allegations of fraud in the 2020 Presidential election continue to make headlines, and make powerful political ammunition for both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Allegations of voting fraud are not a fringe position held by a small minority. Polling shows that nearly half of American voters have serious doubts about Joe Biden’s election victory. According to a January Axios/Momentive poll, only a small majority (55 percent) accepts Biden as having legitimately won the 2020 election, down slightly from 58 percent a year earlier.

A Monmouth University poll in late 2021 provided similar findings: a third of the American public (32 percent) believes that Biden won the 2020 election only due to voter fraud—a percentage that has not changed across five different polls conducted by the university in 2021. Nearly 3 in 4 Republicans (73 percent) hold the same belief that the 2020 election was fraudulent.

And it isn’t just the general public expressing doubt. Dozens of Republican candidates for state and federal offices have made talking about 2020 election fraud a key part of their successful primary campaigns.

According to a recent Washington Post analysis, candidates who question the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election have won more than 60 percent of Republican nominations for state and federal offices with authority over elections, including secretaries of state, and U.S. House and Senate seats.

The Post reports that in their analysis of races for federal and state offices with power over elections, “more than half the GOP winners so far—about 250 candidates in 469 contests—have embraced Trump’s false claims about his defeat two years ago.” In the six battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, 62 percent of Republican nominees have made public claims of 2020 election fraud during their campaigns.

Republican candidates for governor have been especially prominent in their questioning of the 2020 Presidential election. More than half of the GOP nominees for governor in this election cycle have made statements casting doubt on the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election.

Among the most prominent politicians to make public claims of election fraud in 2020: