Americans Believe Their Democracy Under Threat, Expect Election-Related Violence

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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

A new CBS/YouGov poll shows that the confidence American citizens have in their democratic system is not strong. On the contrary, there are fears of electoral violence only months before the presidential elections. At the same time, a poll by The Telegraph found that US voters in five key battle states want support for Ukraine to decrease.

70% of respondents considered that democracy in the United States is threatened, while 30% thought that democracy is safe, according to the CBS/YouGov survey conducted between January 3 and 5. Additionally, 49% believe there will be chaos and violence from whichever side loses during or after this year’s election. The rest, 51%, hope the elections will be conducted peacefully and with full respect for the official results.

The survey was published within the framework of the third anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, one of the most critical moments in North American political life and whose legal consequences are still ongoing. On January 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump violently took over Congress in protest of Joe Biden’s victory, which they considered illegal and fraudulent.

In this sense, the CBS/YouGov survey indicates that 39% of Americans do not consider Biden the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential elections, even though no conclusive evidence demonstrates the alleged fraud, an allegation mainly pushed by Trump. However, 78% of respondents disapproved of the “actions taken by the people who forced their way into the US Capitol” in January. Nonetheless, more than a third of those surveyed consider the Capitol storming as “defending freedom.”

The poll also found that two-thirds of Republicans continue to support Trump’s suggestion to grant pardons to those involved in the Capitol attack, whilst nearly half of US citizens, mostly Democrats, are in favour of removing Trump from the ballot if states believe he committed insurrection. Overall, a narrow majority would keep Trump on election ballots.

Most alarming for the Democrats is the revelation that voters in key US battleground states believe the Biden administration has given too much military support to Ukraine. A new Telegraph poll reveals that a third of voters in six swing states said they thought the US had spent “too much” on supporting Ukraine, while a large minority in five of the six said aid should now be cut.

The poll is another blow for Biden, who is desperately requesting Congress to approve a $61 billion package for Ukraine before Russia’s winter bombing campaign destroys key infrastructure in the Eastern European country.

According to in-depth polling and market research company Redfield & Wilton Strategies for The Telegraph, Trump has more support for his Ukraine policy in the key battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. In five of the six states, 32 per cent of respondents believe US support for Ukraine had been too high, with 33 per cent reporting the same in Pennsylvania, whilst between 30 and 37 per cent said support should be decreased, with between 15 and 19 per cent arguing it should be increased.

The poll also found that voters in five of the six states thought the Ukraine war would not have broken out if Trump had won the 2020 election. These voters are also likely attracted to Trump’s pledge to end the war in only “one day” by mediating negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and ending the supply of American munitions.

However, unlike the Ukraine war, most voters in the key swing states believe that the war in Gaza would have occurred whether Trump was president or not. In this way, Americans identify that the war in Ukraine is US-instigated, whilst the causes of the war in Gaza predate US involvement in the Middle East.

Most interestingly in the Telegraph’s poll is that voters in swing states are more supportive of Washington’s backing of Israel – with most voters in five of the six states believing that the military aid given to Tel Aviv is “the right amount.” Asked whether the US should increase, decrease, or maintain its current levels of support, the largest group in all six states said the Biden administration should maintain it.

This points to an obvious level of war fatigue in relation to Eastern Europe but not the Middle East. With a huge portion of US voters sceptical that domestic peace can be maintained after the elections, it begs the question of whether Biden will continue the deeply unpopular action of financing and supporting Ukraine. It is evidently unpopular, especially in the context of average Americans struggling to make ends meet, but Biden persists.