5 Weeks After Election, 72% of Republicans Don't Trust Biden's Victory Over Trump
Just over five weeks after the November 3 election and more than a month after President-elect Joe Biden was projected as the winner, nearly three-quarters of Republicans do not trust that President Donald Trump actually lost.
Biden was projected as the winner of the election on November 7, after the Associated Press, Fox News and other television networks called Pennsylvania and Nevada in the Democrats favor. This pushed Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris passed the 270-vote threshold to declare victory in the Electoral College. But Trump has refused to concede, claiming without providing evidence that he lost the election due to widespread voter fraud.
Even though nearly all of the legal challenges brought by the president's lawyers and his supporters have failed in court, it appears Trump has convinced the majority of Republicans that the election was "rigged." New polling published by NPR/Marist on Wednesday shows that 72 percent of Republicans do not trust the outcome of the election. Just 24 percent of GOP respondents said they believe the results are credible, while 4 percent said they weren't sure.
Overall, the survey—which was conducted from December 1 to 6—showed that 61 percent of Americans trust the results of the election while 34 percent do not trust the results and 5 percent are unsure. Among Democrats, 95 percent trust the results, as do 67 percent of independents. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
Even the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a lawsuit brought by Representative Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican, to overturn the election results in his state. None of the judges—not even any of the three justices appointed by Trump—dissented from the decision to reject the lawsuit. Another case brought by Texas in a bid to throw out the results of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin is pending with the Supreme Court, but it is widely expected to fail.
A separate poll conducted by Daily Kos/Civiqs showed that just 18 percent of Americans who say they frequently watch Fox News believe the outcome of the election. Notably, 70 percent of respondents who do not watch Fox News believe the results were legitimate. Despite the fact that Fox News was one of the first media outlets to call the election in Biden's favor, many of the conservative network's hosts have promoted false conspiracy theories that support Trump's claims of widespread fraud.
"Fox News has been at the forefront of Trump's effort to overturn the election results, taking a leading position among other right-wing media outlets. In just the first two weeks after the election, the network pushed conspiracy theories or cast doubt on the election results nearly 600 times," Eric Kleefield from the organization Media Matters for America said in an email to Newsweek.
There is no evidence to back the president and his supporters' claims. Judges, including several appointed by Republicans and Trump himself, have consistently dismissed the allegations, often pointing out that lawyers for the president and his GOP supporters have not provided evidence to support their claims. Even close Trump allies have described the legal effort as a "national embarrassment," urging the president to accept the reality of his loss.
