Voters Have Growing Concerns About Post-Election Violence and Efforts to Overturn Results, Poll Shows

Nearly four years since the U.S. Capitol was assaulted by a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump, a poll revealed that voters have growing concerns of potential violence and the possibility of another attempt to overturn this year's electoral results.

With Election Day one week away, a new survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed that many voters feel "extremely" or "very" concerned about another violent attempt to overturn the results on November 5.

Concretely, about four in 10 registered voters say they are fearful of a new attempt to overturn the election's results, with a similar share worried about legal efforts to do so. Moreover, about one in three also said they are "extremely" or "very" concerned about attempts by local or state election officials to stop the results from being tallied.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that he can only lose the elections this time if the process is rigged against him. On Oct. 23 he warned voters that the U.S. political system could collapse in the same way Venezuela's has if he loses next Tuesday. If Kamala Harris wins, he said, it could spell the end of democracy in the United States.

"If we lose this election, we may not have a country anymore. And I've heard this from a lot of very smart people ... they say we may never have an election again in this country," Trump said. He then compared the situation to the one taking place in the South American country, referring to the fact that Nicolás Maduro claimed to win the elections without showing supporting documentation and cemented his grip on power.

Only one in every three voters expect Trump to accept the election's results

Nearly 90% of respondents said the loser of the presidential election is obligated to concede once every state has finished counting its votes, but that number slightly decreases among Republicans, with about eight in every 10 voters saying so.

Democrats and Republicans have different views on whether Trump will do so if he loses, with two-thirds of Republican voters thinking that will be the case, compared to only about one in 10 Democrats.

Overall, only about a third of voters expect former President Trump to accept the results and concede if he loses, compared to nearly eight in 10 voters who believe Harris will accept the results and concede in case she loses the election.

The AP-NORC poll was conducted between Oct. 11-14 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll included responses from 1,072 adults and the margin of sampling error for registered voters is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.