Then why in the world did they vote for him?:
A majority of Americans oppose Donald Trump’s plans to use the U.S. military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, to instruct the U.S. Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and to pardon rioters charged with breaking into the U.S. Capitol on
Jan. 6, 2021, according to a nationwide
Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.
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Even larger majorities of Americans oppose Trump’s plans to jail reporters for writing stories he doesn’t like and having police use force against anti-Trump protests.
The survey of 1,251 Americans was conducted weeks after Trump’s victory and sought to examine public sentiment about positions espoused by the president-elect that challenge democratic principles and strain constitutional norms, as well as views on the legitimacy of American elections after Trump’s win. Trump has claimed a broad mandate for his proposals and has selected cabinet secretaries and other executive branch officials who have expressed eagerness to carry them out. But the poll results indicate that Americans reject many of the proposals that experts say could erode the guardrails that help keep presidential power in check.
Trump does seem to have the blessing of a majority of registered Republicans for some of his most divisive ideas, including 77 percent who back his pledge to use the armed forces to carry out mass deportations compared with 42 percent of Americans overall. Nearly 6 in 10 Republicans say they support the Justice Department investigating Trump’s enemies, whereas fewer than 4 in 10 Americans overall agree. And 60 percent of Republicans back Trump pardoning Jan. 6 convicts, almost double the 32 percent of Americans in general who feel the same.
“I find it mostly disheartening that there is so much division. There is a fundamental disagreement about basic norms and basic facts,” said Mike Hanmer, a government and politics professor at the University of Maryland. “We’re not on the same page in terms of how we deal with power and how we hold power accountable.”
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Americans are also split over how Trump will behave as president this time. The poll finds 40 percent think he will try to rule as a dictator, 41 percent say he won’t and another 19 percent aren’t sure. Yet Americans widely have faith in democratic institutions, with 71 percent saying constitutional guardrails like the checks and balances of Congress and the Supreme Court would block Trump from securing total power over the country, while 25 percent think Trump would succeed if he tried.
An overwhelming majority of Americans across the political spectrum do not think Trump should jail reporters who write stories he doesn’t like. Still, 1 in 10 Americans support it, including 15 percent of Republicans and 5 percent of Democrats. Hanmer said that’s still a “dangerously high” number of people who would be okay with prosecuting journalists. During a news conference this week, Trump said he wanted to “straighten out the press” and suggested the Justice Department target the “very dishonest” media.
Separately, a 72 percent majority of Americans oppose police using force to stop anti-Trump protests; including 54 percent of Republicans. Seven in 10 Republicans support Trump firing FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, while just over half of the public overall opposes prematurely ending his 10-year term. The poll was completed before Wray announced his intention to resign last week, though Trump had sent a clear message that he intended to replace Wray when he endorsed Kash Patel as the next FBI director.
The poll also asked how people felt about President Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter, who had been convicted in June on tax and gun charges. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans oppose the decision, including 47 percent of Democrats and 88 percent of Republicans. Far fewer Republicans support Biden pardoning his son, who was not convicted of a violent crime, than they do Trump pardoning a group of people who engaged in a violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol.
Drew, a 31-year-old police detective in New Jersey who declined to give his last name for fear of online harassment, said he hadn’t supported Trump pardoning the Jan. 6 convicts until Biden did so for his son. Drew, who voted for Trump, said in an interview that as someone who works in law enforcement, he didn’t support what the rioters did that day. But he also said he thinks they were trying to “practice their civic duty” because the 2020 election results “didn’t seem accurate.”
The mob of Trump supporters who sought to block Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory in 2021 did so after Trump convinced them that there had been widespread voting fraud that cost him the election — despite there being no evidence of significant malfeasance. In the months leading up to the
2024 election, Trump and many of his allies baselessly warned of voting irregularities and corruption to steal the election for the Democrats. Since he won, Trump has not publicly questioned whether the election was administered fairly and his Democratic opponent, Vice President
Kamala Harris, quickly conceded defeat.
The Post-UMD poll finds 79 percent of Americans say Trump won legitimately this year while 63 percent say Biden’s victory in 2020 was fair. Acceptance of Trump’s win is bipartisan, with 96 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of independents and 70 percent of Democrats saying he won legitimately. There is also a slight uptick in Republicans accepting Biden’s 2020 win compared to a
Post-UMD poll conducted in 2023. Last year, 31 percent of Republicans said Biden fairly won in 2020 and this year 41 percent do. A 58 percent majority of Republicans continue to reject Biden’s 2020 victory.
Democratic acceptance of Trump’s win this year is more than twice as high as in 2017, when a
Post-UMD survey that year found 32 percent believed he legitimately won the 2016 vote. Those views were fueled by investigations of that year’s election, which found that Russia had spread disinformation to interfere on Trump’s behalf.
The poll also asked whether there was voter fraud in the 2024 election. About 1 in 6 Americans (16 percent) say there is solid evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2024 election, down from the 1 in 3 Americans (33 percent) who said this about the 2020 election in a Post-UMD poll last year. Perceptions of evidence of fraud in elections have plummeted among Republicans. Last year, 62 percent of Republicans said there was proven fraud in the 2020 election compared to 21 percent today who say there was in this year’s election. (There is no evidence of widespread fraud in either election.)
“The Republican base will believe what Trump says about this,” Hanmer said.
Thomas Sweeney, a 74-year-old from Texas, said he voted reluctantly for Trump. He blames the president-elect for the Jan. 6 attack and, as a West Point graduate, said he strongly opposes using the military for any domestic matters, including deportations. He also believes Trump will try to rule as a dictator, but is hopeful Congress will stand up to him.
“We need to have Congress be able to flex their muscles and not roll over every time he yells about something,” Sweeney said.
Americans are also divided over whether Trump will try to stay in office after his second term ends in 2029, despite the Constitution saying a president can only be elected to president twice. Just under half, 48 percent, say he will try to stay in the White House for a third term, and 50 percent say he will step down. Some Trump allies, like former adviser Stephen K. Bannon, have
already floated the idea that Trump could run again because his terms were not consecutive. Constitutional scholars say the theory has no basis.
Overall, Americans are at odds over what Trump’s election means for the country. About 3 in 10 say his election is “a crisis for the country,” while a similar share say it is “great for the country.” About 2 in 10 say his win is a setback, but not a crisis, and roughly the same share say it is good, but not great.
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