The Big Lie, Con't

NBC finds that nearly two years later, the vast majority of Republicans remain election deniers who believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump, and the Joe Biden is not President.

 

New polling from NBC News shows just 22% of registered Republican voters believe in the legitimacy of Biden's election, with 65% viewing his election illegitimate.

That makes Republicans an outlier — overall, 60% of registered voters believe Biden's election was legitimate and 33% do not. One-hundred percent of Democrats and 74% of independents view his election as legitimate, along with a majority of white voters, voters of colors, independents, voters in cities and suburbs, as well as voters across all regions and age groups.

The only subgroups in the new poll that don't believe in the legitimacy of Biden's election are those who are correlated with stronger support for Republicans.

Just 19% of those who voted for former President Trump in 2020 believe that election was legitimate, along with 22% who want the GOP to win control of Congress this fall, 22% of white evangelicals, 34% of rural voters and 43% of white working-class voters.

Overall, confidence in Biden's election has stayed virtually stagnant since the Jan. 2021 poll. Democratic belief in the election's legitimacy rose 4% points from 96% to 100%, as the share of independents rose from 62% to 74%.

But Republicans remained steady — just 21% said in Jan. 2021 that Biden's election was legitimate, and 22% said so in the Oct. 2022 poll.

 

This is not a "both sides" issue. Republican election deniers are a direct thereat to American democracy. Two-thirds of Republicans don't believe Biden is legitimately President, which means they will support whatever GOP "remedies" to "stop the steal" they believe are necessary, up to and including voter intimidation, false election results, and violence. 

The problem isn't Trump. The problem isn't all the GOP election deniers running for office. The problem are the tens of millions of people denying the results of the 2020 election, and most likely the 2022 and 2024 elections as well.

And they will act accordingly.

We are nowhere near ready as a nation to deal with what's coming next month.