Confidence or doubt in the accuracy of the 2020 election has persisted as an issue since that vote. While substantial majorities of registered voters in Wisconsin are confident the election results were accurate, among Republicans the opposite is true– a majority of Republicans doubt the accuracy of the 2020 election. There has been little change in views of that election over the past nineteen months.
In April, Wisconsin held elections for a variety of state and local offices, including judges, mayors, school boards and other nonpartisan positions. These elections were not followed by widespread claims of fraud or manipulation by either party or by the losers of those elections.
How do Wisconsin registered voters perceive the accuracy of the April 2022 elections compared to the November 2020 election? If “faith in elections” has been seriously damaged by claims that 2020 was a fraud, we should see similar doubts of the 2022 election. If doubt in the 2020 election is primarily a sign of support for former President Donald Trump and his allies, then the reality is not doubt in elections generally but specifically only in the election Trump lost. The April 2022 Wisconsin vote gives us a chance to look at the evidence.
The Marquette Law School poll conducted April 19-24, 2022 followed the April 5 elections in the state. The sample size was 805 registered voters with a margin of error of +/-4.1 percentage points. Full results are available here. Respondents were asked parallel questions about this and the 2020 election:
On April 5, Wisconsin held elections for school boards, judges, local and county positions and other offices. How confident are you that, here in Wisconsin, these votes were accurately cast and counted in the April election?
Concerning the 2020 election they were asked
How confident are you that, here in Wisconsin, the votes for president were accurately cast and counted in the 2020 election?
Response options to both are “very confident”, “somewhat confident”, “not too confident” and “not at all confident.” In the tables below very and somewhat confident are combined as “confident” responses and “not too” or “not at all” confident are combined as “not confident.”
Table 1 shows the results for the April 2022 and November 2020 elections. Confidence in the April 2022 election is 84% compared to 64% confident in the 2020 vote. Only 13% doubt the April results while almost three times as many, 35%, say they doubt the November 2020 election results.
| Response | April 2022 | November 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Confident | 84 | 64 |
| Not confident | 13 | 35 |
| DK/Ref | 3 | 1 |
Views of the 2020 election differ dramatically by party, while partisan differences in confidence in the April 2022 elections is much more muted. Large majorities of each partisan group are confident in the April election results, including about three-quarters of Republicans and over 80% of independents. While 22% of Republicans still profess doubt in the April election that contrasts sharply with the 65% of Republicans who say they doubt the 2020 results.
Among independents, confidence is substantially higher in the April election, 82%, than in the 2020 outcome, 65%, though substantial majorities of independents are confident in both elections.
Democrats are nearly unanimous in their confidence in both elections.
Table 2 shows confidence by party for the April 2022 and November 2020 elections.
Table 2: Confidence in the April 2022 and November 2020 elections by party identification, , Wisconsin registered voters, Marquette Law School poll, April 19-24, 2022
| Party ID | Confident | Not confident | DK/Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | 74 | 22 | 4 |
| Independent | 82 | 14 | 3 |
| Democrat | 97 | 3 | 0 |
| Party ID | Confident | Not confident | DK/Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | 33 | 65 | 2 |
| Independent | 65 | 34 | 2 |
| Democrat | 96 | 4 | 0 |
Among those who are not confident in the 2020 vote, almost two-thirds, 63%, are confident in the 2022 outcome, with 33% who are not confident in the 2022 result. Virtually everyone confident in 2020 is also confident in 2022. Table 3 shows confidence in 2022 by confidence in 2020.
| Confidence in 2020 | Confident | Not confident | DK/Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confident | 96 | 2 | 2 |
| Not confident | 63 | 33 | 4 |
We can also look at confidence in both elections as a percentage of all registered voters, shown in Table 4. The entries here are the “cell percentages”, the size of each cell as a percent of all respondents.
| Confidence in 2020 | Confident | Not confident | DK/Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confident | 61 | 2 | 1 |
| Not confident | 22 | 11 | 1 |
Of all registered voters, 11% lack confidence in both elections, while 61% are confident in both. Twenty-two percent are not confident in 2020 but are confident in 2022. This is the crucial segment of the population who doubt Trump’s loss, but are still confident in an election he had no role in and which is not disputed by either party. Just 2% are confident in 2020 but not in 2022.
Conclusion
Supporters of Donald Trump have blamed his loss in 2020 on “election fraud” of some sort. But when considering a different election, one not disputed by either party, they are quite confident in the outcome. While there is some residual increase in doubt of 2022 among those who doubt the 2020 election, it is far short of a widespread “lack of faith in elections” generally.
While the April non-partisan elections in Wisconsin are revealing, the November partisan contests will provide another test of the inclination of parties to blame their losses on “fraud.”