Most American adults believe democracy is in the ballot, but views differ on threat: AP-NORC poll

NEW YORK — About 3 in 4 American adults say the upcoming presidential election is crucial to the future of American democracy, a poll shows, though which candidate they think poses a greater threat depends on their political views.

Survey conducted by Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Research Center states that majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents view the election as “very important” or “extremely important” for democracy, while Democrats have a higher level of intensity on the issue. More than half of Democrats say the November election is “extremely important” for the future of U.S. democracy, compared to about 4-in-10 independents and Republicans.

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Democrat Pamela Hanson, 67, of America, Wisconsin, said she has grave concerns about the future of democracy in the country if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected.

“His statements tend to suggest that he is a king or a dictator, a person who rules single-handedly,” Hanson said. “I mean, I think the man is unbalanced.”

But Republican Ernie Wagner of Liberty, New York, said President Joe Biden’s administration — which includes Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee — has abused executive power.

“Biden tried to cancel student loans, and the courts told him that was unconstitutional,” said Wagner, 85. “He used the FBI as a weapon to get to his political opponents.”

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Polling shows many Democrats still view Trump as a threat to democracy after he tried to overturn the 2020 election results, supported the riots that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and threatened revenge against his opponents if he wins the election.

But they also point out that many Trump supporters agree with him that Biden is a real threat to democracy. Trump and his allies have accused Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department as it brought charges against the former president over his effort stop certification 2020 election and keeping secret documents, although there is no evidence Biden had any involvement or influence in those matters.

Trump portrayed himself as a defender of American values ​​and portrayed Biden as “destroyer” democracy. He said it many times after he survived assassination attempt last month that he “took a bullet for democracy.”

The survey was conducted on after Biden withdrew race and Harris announcing her campaign, is an early look at Americans’ views on the transformed professions.

Majorities of Democrats and Republicans believe that democracy could be at risk in this election, depending on who wins the presidential election. These responses are generally consistent with the results from the last question asked in 2016. and AP-NORC poll from December 2023.

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Hanson, a Wisconsin Democrat, said she fears Trump will employ the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court in a second term to overturn critical freedoms. She also worries he will fill his Cabinet with loyalists who don’t care about the well-being of everyone in the country and defund agencies that regulate key functions of society.

But Wagner, a New York Republican, downplayed those concerns and pointed to Trump’s incumbency.

“When he was in the White House, we had peace, we had prosperity, we had energy independence,” he said. “What’s undemocratic about that?”

He said he did not believe Trump’s intentions in the lead-up to the January 6 event were criminal.

“I think he just made a mistake,” Wagner said.

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Some independent parliamentarians are seriously considering the issue that the upcoming elections raise and what the future of democracy in the country will be.

“I think this is the most important election of my lifetime,” said Patricia Seliga-Williams, 53, of LaVale, Maryland, an independent who is leaning toward voting for Harris.

Seliga-Williams said she barely makes ends meet on $15 an hour as a hotel waitress and remembers Trump doing well on the economy and immigration. But she was upset when he recently joked that he planned “dictator” on the first day in the office.

“We all know Donald Trump could run the country,” she said. “But he’s just too aggressive, and I don’t think I can trust him as a voter.”

Not everyone agrees that this year’s presidential election will be a turning point for democracy in the country, citing very different reasons, according to an AP-NORC poll. About 2 in 10 Americans say U.S. democracy is sturdy enough to withstand the election outcome no matter who wins, while another 2 in 10 believe democracy is so badly broken that the outcome doesn’t matter.

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The poll also shows that the stakes of democracy in the election are felt more strongly by older people than by younger people. About half of adults age 45 and older say the election outcome is extremely critical for the future of democracy, compared with about 4 in 10 adults under 45.

“The idea that another candidate is trying to destroy democracy doesn’t sit well with me,” said Daniel Oliver, a 26-year-old independent from suburban Detroit. “I think we have provisions to protect against people trying to destroy democracy. We have other branches of government. We have people who believe in voting. So it would be hard for a candidate to take over and become some kind of dictator.”

He added that he would look for candidates who would talk about issues he was more interested in, such as curbing inflation and investing in neat energy.

Biden and Trump have spent months arguing over whose second term would be worse for democracy. The president nodded to the consequences when he ended his campaign last month, saying in his Oval Office speech that “defending democracy is more important than any title.”

Harris has focused more on the concept of “freedom” early in her campaign. She said Trump’s reelection could result in Americans losing the freedom to vote, the freedom to be unthreatening from gun violence and the freedom for women to make decisions about their own bodies. Her debut campaign ad last month was set to Beyoncé’s 2016 song “Freedom,” and it has since become her campaign anthem at rallies.

Harris did not mention democracy at her first two campaign rallies, but she returned to the topic in a speech to members of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority in Houston last week, saying that “our fundamental freedoms are on the ballot, and so is our democracy.”

The poll of 1,143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, 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 all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.