Americans Fear Violence Following Nov. 3 Presidential Election, Fewer Than Half Say Results Will Be Accepted

More than half of voters fear violence following the Nov. 3 election while just 11% said they were confident no violence would result, a YouGov poll indicated Wednesday.

Fifty-five percent of the 1,503 people queried Oct. 1-2 said they expected violence – no matter who wins – while 33% said they were unsure what would happen.

Just 49% of 1,999 people who responded to the Braver Angels survey said they expected Americans to accept the election results.

President Donald Trump has been doing his best to stir up doubt about the legitimacy of the election, setting the stage for court challenges should he lose. He also has blocked additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service, hoping to cripple the agency ahead of what is expected to be a deluge of mailed ballots, the result of coronavirus fears that will keep many Americans out of polling places on Election Day.

Trump has said he thinks the winner should be whoever is leading on election night – an impossibility since it takes much longer to count mail-in paper ballots than electronically cast votes. Official results take weeks to certify.

Trump has refused to say he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses, saying instead he doesn’t expect to lose, so there will be no need to transfer power.

“We want to have — get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very trans- — we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly; there’ll be a continuation,” Trump told a Sept. 23 White House briefing.

The RealClearPolitics average of recent polls indicates Democratic rival Joe Biden is leading the president by 9.4 points nationally. The polls also give Biden substantial leads in several key battleground states Trump won in 2016. Additionally, there are indications Trump is losing support from senior voters, the single-largest voting block and a significant portion of his 2016 winning margin.

A second YouGov poll, this one commissioned by Newsy, indicated moderate voters are breaking Biden’s way, 68% to 26%.