A new poll from Civiqs for Daily Kos shows that an overwhelming majority of frequent Fox News viewers expressed concern about “election fraud” in the 2024 presidential campaign, even though such fraud rarely occurs in American elections. Among registered voters identified as frequent viewers of Fox News in the October 2024 survey, 95% said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about fraud. By contrast, among those who said they don’t watch Fox, 47% were at least somewhat concerned, while 50% said they weren’t concerned. Datawrapper Content The disproportionately high level of concern among the Fox News audience comes after years of Donald Trump promoting falsehoods about elections. Trump has infamously claimed that he won the 2020 election “by a lot” after he lost both the popular vote and Electoral College to now-President Joe Biden. Trump has also alleged that millions of votes for Biden were fraudulent, and he was indicted on federal charges for his efforts to subvert the election. Even after he won the 2016 election, Trump pushed lies about fraud. That year, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College but defeated Trump in the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. Despite his victory, Trump lied and said, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Trump’s allies at the conservative Fox News, where many of the poll’s registered voters get much of their information, have a long history of promoting election-fraud falsehoods. In the 2024 campaign cycle, the network’s hosts and pundits have repeatedly pushed stories about Democrats conspiring to steal elections and promoted the myth of noncitizens voting in droves. Fox News has continued this practice despite facing financial consequences for promoting Trump’s 2020 election lies. In 2023, Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million in a settlement after the voting services firm sued the network for airing falsehoods about the company. The poll unfortunately finds that 60% of registered voters were at least somewhat concerned about election fraud. Such fraud in the U.S. is extremely rare. The Brennan Center for Justice notes that “most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless and that most of the few remaining allegations reveal irregularities and other forms of election misconduct.” But voter suppression is real, and various tactics related to suppressing the vote—particularly among minority and youth voters—have been embraced by conservatives and Republicans over the years. And on the rare occasion when fraud related to elections has occurred, recent cases have often involved actions done either by Republicans or with the intent of helping Republican candidates. We need your help if we’re going to defeat Trump, Vance, Project 2025, and Republicans up and down the ballot. Click here to volunteer to write letters so we can increase voter turnout. Campaign Action
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