Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are equally trusted to handle democracy despite Democrats repeatedly claiming that he is a “threat to our democracy,” according to a New York Times/Siena poll from Monday.
When asked which candidate they trust to handle democracy, Trump and Harris tied at 47% among likely voters in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, according to the poll. Harris, President Joe Biden and their Democratic colleagues have repeatedly retorted that Trump and the “MAGA Republicans” are an imminent “threat to our democracy.”
Scarborough doubles down on calling Trump a “threat to democracy”: pic.twitter.com/eypduDQKgh
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 23, 2024
The New York Times found the findings from their own poll “striking” given Trump’s past impeachment for what they called “his role” in the January 6 riot. Although 34% of likely Sun Belt voters take issue with Trump’s temperament, Harris is facing her own set of challenges, according to the poll.
“While the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say as clearly as we can,” Biden said during his 2022 speech at independence hall. We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on our democracy. There are far more Americans from every background and belief who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it. And folks, it is within our power, it’s in our hands, yours and mine, to stop the assault on American democracy.”
“Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democracy and our most fundamental freedoms,” Harris said in a campaign video in July. “Remember the chaos, the division, the attacks that took rights and liberties from the American people. We cannot allow that to happen again.”
Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have similarly made claims about Trump’s “existential threat to democracy.”
“If one political party believes that when you lose an election, the answer isn’t to win more votes but rather to try and prevent the other side from voting, we have an existential threat to democracy on our hands,” Schumer said in 2021.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans are claiming voter fraud before ballots are even cast in November,” Jeffries said in a post on X. “These unpatriotic election deniers are completely unfit to govern.”
Among these likely voters, 16% said their biggest issue with Harris is her personality, 12% said their biggest concern is her handling of the economy and 12% said it’s her honesty and follow through, according to the poll. At the same time, just 9% said their biggest concerns with Trump are his honesty and ethics, while 0% said they are concerned about his handling of the economy.
The NYT/Siena poll surveyed 2,077 likely voters in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina from Sept. 17 to Sept. 21 with a margin of error of +/- 2.5%.
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