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(Reuters) – As the 2020 presidential election enters its final week, most Americans seem willing to accept the outcome of a grueling campaign even if their preferred candidate loses, according to a Reuters / Ipsos poll.
His latest poll, conducted Oct. 13-20, shows that 79% of all Americans, including 59% of those who want to re-elect President Donald Trump, will accept a victory from Democratic challenger Joe Biden even if they don’t support a presidency. of Biden.
Among Trump supporters who said they would not accept a Biden victory, 16% said they would do something to challenge a Democratic victory, such as protesting in public or resorting to violence.
The poll also found that 73% of Americans, including 57% of Biden supporters, would similarly accept a Trump victory. Among those who said they would not accept a Trump victory, 22% said they would take action to challenge the outcome.
US election officials are grappling with a number of challenges this year that have raised concerns about public confidence in the outcome.
Top national security officials warned last week that Russia and Iran have been hacking into US voting systems and looking for ways to undermine the elections.
Trump has also repeatedly questioned the integrity of the US elections, arguing that the process is “rigged” against him and repeatedly claiming without evidence that the increase in voting by mail this year will increase the likelihood of voter fraud. It has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if the vote count indicates that it has lost.
So far, at least, the majority of the American public seems willing to accept the result.
Donald Green, a political scientist at Columbia University, said the poll results ease his concerns about post-election violence. But he warned that if the elections are closed, or if a candidate can make a credible accusation of voter fraud, it could provoke more discontent and protests than the poll suggests.
“This is why many people who are opposed to Trump are holding their breath and waiting for an uneven result that is not available,” Green said.
The latest Reuters / Ipsos poll shows that Biden leads Trump by 8 percentage points nationally: 51% of likely voters say they are backing the Democratic challenger, while 43% are voting for the president.
Biden is also ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan, but the race appears to be much closer in other battle states, including Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina.
The Reuters / Ipsos survey was conducted online, in English, across the United States. It collected responses from 2,649 American adults, including 1,039 who said they had voted for Trump or planned to vote for him, and 1,153 who said they similarly endorsed Biden.
The survey has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 4 percentage points.
(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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