WASHINGTON (AP) — Daemien Williams used to trust U.S. election results, but not anymore.
The 50-year-old Democrat in Centreville, Illinois, worries that President Donald Trump and other Republicans will try anything from intimidating voters to seizing ballots to hold onto power in November’s midterm elections — and, in the process, jeopardize the outcome.
“I don’t put anything past these people,” he said. “My trust level is at its all-time low.”
Registered voters who identify as Democrats have lost faith in America’s election results since the midterm elections four years ago, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Their confidence that votes will be counted accurately has dropped from 75% in 2022 to 55% this year.
The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters also say the president attempting to influence U.S. elections is a “major problem,” a view that’s shared by independents but not most Republicans.
Meanwhile, Republican voters’ confidence in the results has risen slightly since 2022 — but they’re still less likely to say they have faith in the electoral process than Democrats.
The survey, conducted less than a month before Election Day, signals how opinion has changed since Trump returned to the White House last year and began a wide-ranging effort to expand federal authority over elections. Even though the Constitution gives states and Congress control over voting processes, Trump has tried to overhaul them through executive action and lawsuits, so far without success.
With the Nov. 3 elections approaching, the Republican president has signaled he wants federal prosecutors to be on the lookout for fraud, suggesting he may try legal challenges if the votes don’t go his way.
Williams said that, despite his concerns, he still plans to vote in the midterms because it’s the only power he has in choosing his representation.
“If you take that away from America, you pretty much take away the foundation of this country,” he said.
Republicans have gained more faith in the process since Trump’s return
Democratic voters, who had largely trusted U.S. elections even after Trump falsely claimed he won the 2020 race and his supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol to champion that cause, have recently begun to doubt the upcoming results. But they still have more confidence than Republican and independent voters.
Slightly fewer than half of all U.S. voters have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in the accuracy of the vote, down to 45% this year from 50% in 2022. Independents have remained steady with a lower level of trust, with 34% saying they have a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in both years.
Republicans, meanwhile, are growing more confident since Trump returned to power, even as they remain less confident than Democrats. About 38% of GOP voters have a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in the results this year, compared with 26% in 2022.
Some voters said their confidence levels related to escalating threats from Trump that he could get involved in the elections. Earlier this month, his administration filed a lawsuit against California officials claiming they didn’t adequately address alleged noncitizen voters on their rolls, and it warned that election workers who process ballots from noncitizens could face criminal investigation and prosecution.
His administration has said it has no plans to send the military or immigration agents to patrol polling places, although the head of the Department of Homeland Security said immigration officers could be sent there for targeted operations, such as making an arrest with a warrant. Trump critics have expressed fears over potential voter intimidation, with some pointing to a Department of Justice plan to deploy 1,000 monitors to voting locations.
Alan Curtis in Grove, Oklahoma, is among the Republican voters feeling better this year. The 67-year-old, who was suspicious of election fraud before the presidential election in 2024, sees Trump’s bully pulpit as a strong deterrent.
“I think the election officials will be running scared,” he said. “The people in other political parties are afraid of what Donald Trump might do.”
Curtis said he still believes that Democrats could try to cheat — an accusation made often by the president without providing evidence — but he expects Trump will step in with lawsuits or other interventions if he sees anything suspicious.
“He’s going to challenge anything where he sees things that look out of the ordinary,” Curtis said of Trump.
If there are legal challenges, few Americans have faith in the U.S. Supreme Court to decide them fairly. Just 17% of registered voters were “extremely” or “very” confident the court would handle a case related to the midterm elections in a fair and nonpartisan manner.
Democrats see presidential election interference as a big problem
While some Republicans view Trump getting involved as a positive, the poll shows the vast majority of Democrats feel the opposite.
About 9 in 10 Democratic voters believe that the president attempting to influence election outcomes is “a major problem,” compared with only about 2 in 10 Republican voters.
Brooklyn Johnson, a 26-year-old Democrat in Davis, California, said she dislikes Trump’s dubious promise of $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans retain control of the House and the Senate in the midterms.
“The fact that he’s been trying to bribe people, that’s a little weird,” she said. “It doesn’t seem legal.”
Eugenio Mendez, an independent voter in Columbia, South Carolina, who leans toward Democrats, is so concerned about Trump interfering that it’s affecting his voting plan.
“I don’t trust that mailing my ballot will be counted,” said the 49-year-old Mendez.
He said he’ll vote in person this year because he worries Trump could use his influence over the U.S. Postal Service to meddle with mail-in ballots. Trump signed an executive order this year directing changes at the Postal Service designed to restrict mail voting, but the Supreme Court did not allow the plan to move forward for the midterms.
Voters of different parties see distinct election problems
While Democrats worry about presidential interference, Republicans are more concerned about people voting when they are ineligible. About 7 in 10 Republican voters say this is a “major problem” in U.S. elections compared with just 25% of Democratic voters.
Majorities of voters from both parties also say foreign governments trying to influence election outcomes, artificial intelligence-generated election misinformation and states redrawing legislative districts to intentionally favor one party are “major problems.”
Approaches to voting laws, which differ by state, are also a major dividing line between the parties. Republican voters overwhelmingly favor requiring voters to show ID when casting a ballot and providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote, changes Trump tried unsuccessfully to pass through Congress.
Democrats are more likely than Republicans to favor allowing voters to register and cast a ballot the same day, as well as to support mailing a ballot to all registered voters, a practice Trump and other Republicans have criticized.
But while their support was not as strong as Republicans’, a majority of Democratic voters also favor a voter ID requirement.
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Swenson reported from New York.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,119 adults, including 925 registered voters, was conducted Oct. 8-12 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points, and the margin of error for registered voters is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.