As President Joe Biden marks the one-year anniversary of the Trump-inspired Capitol insurrection, only 6 percent of Republicans believe his election victory was “definitely legitimate.”
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered speeches at the Capitol Thursday morning to mark the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection. And as expected, the president devoted large chunks of the speech to denouncing former President Donald Trump — without naming him — and in particular, the “Big Lie” that Trump perpetuated.
“He’s not just a former president. He’s a defeated former president,” Biden said, “Defeated by a margin of over seven million of your votes… in a full and free and fair election.”
He went on to say that not only is there “no evidence” the election results were inaccurate, “In fact, in every venue where evidence had to be produced and oaths to tell the truth had to be taken, the former president failed to make his case.”
But in a sign of the times, a new poll shows that a shockingly small number of Republicans recognize the reality of Biden’
A new UMass Amherst poll conducted by YouGov and released this week asked respondents “Do you believe that Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was legitimate or not legitimate?”
Only six percent of Republicans said Biden’s win was “definitely legitimate.”
Another 15 percent of Republicans allowed that Biden’s win was “probably legitimate,” while 71 percent said it was either definitely or probably not legitimate.
Of those who said Biden’s victory was illegitimate, the most popular reason given (81 percent) was that “Absentee ballots from deceased people for Biden were counted by election officials in certain states.”
Among all respondents, 58 percent said Biden’s win was legitimate, including 91 percent of Democrats and a disturbingly slim 54 percent majority of independent voters.
Right up until the last weeks of 2021, about a fifth of Republicans still believed that Trump would somehow be “reinstated” to the presidency before the end of the year. That did not come to pass.