Pew: America's Political Chasm Grows Deeper

As the nation heads toward Election Day in the midst of a pandemic and social unrest, a new Pew Research Center survey conducted on the Center’s American Trends Panel finds that Americans’ deep partisan divide, dueling information ecosystems, and divergent responses to conspiracy theories and misinformation are all fueling uncertainty and conflict surrounding the presidential election.

One key area of confusion is the reliability of voting by mail. While evidence suggests that mail-in voting is associated with only minuscule level of fraud, a quarter of U.S. adults say voter fraud has been a major problem when it comes to voting by mail. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (43%) are about four times as likely as Democrats and Democratic leaners (11%) to say voter fraud has been a major issue with mail-in ballots in presidential elections. The new survey, conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2020, among 9,220 adults as part of the American News Pathways project, finds that views of mail-in voting among Republicans and Democrats vary dramatically depending on the news sources they use.

Respondents were asked whether eight prominent news providers were major sources of political and election news for them: Fox News cable channel, CNN, MSNBC, national network TV (ABC, CBS and NBC were asked together), NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and talk radio (Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh listed as examples). Researchers grouped these sources according to the political composition of the respondents who use them for major sources. Democrats and Republicans, including those who lean to each party, were then divided into groups based on which sources they turned to as major sources for political and election news.

About six-in-ten (61%) of the Republicans whose only major sources of election news among the eight asked about are those with right-leaning audiences – talk radio and/or Fox News – say mail-in voter fraud is a major problem. That figure falls to 23% among Republicans whose major news sources do not include talk radio or Fox News. Meanwhile, Democrats whose only major sources of election news are those with left-leaning audiences – MSNBC, CNN, NPR, The New York Times and The Washington Post­ – are about twice as likely to say that mail-in voter fraud is not a problem at all when compared with those whose major news sources do not include these outlets (67% vs. 35%).

Also during this campaign, public attention to the once-obscure QAnon – a collection of connected conspiracy theories that has been declared a domestic terror threat ny the FBI – has grown, with a few “Q” proponents running for Congress and Preident Trump expressing support for at least some of them. The percentage of Americans who say they have heard a little or a lot about QAnon has roughly doubled from 23% in March to 47% in the new survey. (Note: The same American Trends Panel members were sampled in both surveys, which raises the possibility that some of the increase in QAnon awareness is attributable to re-asking the same people. This study provides strong support for a real increase in Americans’ awareness of QAnon, but the data offers only a rough approximation for the exact size of that increase.)

Among the other key findings:

• Republicans who say the Trump campaign is a major political news source are much more likely to see voter fraud as a problem with mail-in voting. About six-in-ten Republicans who say the Trump campaign is a major source of election news (61%) see voter fraud as a major problem with mail-in voting. Among Republicans who do not use the Trump campaign as a major source of news, far fewer (36%) say the same. On this question there is little to no difference among Democrats based on whether they turn to Joe Biden and his campaign as a main news source.
• Americans’ interest in election news has risen. Overall, 66% of U.S. adults now say they are following news about the candidates very closely (30%) or fairly closely (35%). When surveyed in early June, 54% of Americans were following candidate news very closely (21%) or fairly closely (32%), and in April, about half (52%) were doing so. There is little difference on this measure by party, but there are large differences by media diet.
• Americans’ responses to questions connecting presidential candidates to issues reflect differences not only in perception, but sometimes in knowledge and understanding of central facts. For example, major partisan gaps emerged on a knowledge question about Trump’s election powers. About two-thirds of all adults (66%) correctly state that the U.S. president does not have the authority to delay the presidential election, with only 10% saying he does – the remaining 24% say they are unsure. However, Republicans are more uncertain about the authority of the president to delay a presidential election. Only about half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (49%) say the president cannot delay elections, while 16% say he can and about one-third (35%) say they are not sure. By comparison, an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (82%) say he cannot delay the election, with only 4% saying he can.
• A knowledge question about whether Joe Biden has publicly supported defunding the police not only produces wide partisan divergence but also highlights differences within the GOP depending on the news sources being used. Among all Americans, 35% correctly respond that Biden has not voiced support for defunding the police, while 27% say he has (37% of U.S. adults say they are not sure). Democrats are far more likely to say Biden has not voiced support for defunding the police (52%) than Republicans (18%). On the other hand, 45% of Republicans say that Biden has voiced support for defunding police, versus just 11% of Democrats who say the same. And among Republicans who only named Fox News or talk radio as major sources of political news, about two-thirds (66%) say Biden has voiced support for defunding the police – far more than Republicans with different media diets.
• Among all Americans, 52% correctly answer that Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris had been the California attorney general before being elected to the Senate, with similar portions of Republicans (51%) than Democrats (56%) responding correctly. However, when asked to characterize Harris’ political views, Republicans are more than 10 times as likely as Democrats to describe her as very liberal.
• About seven-in-ten U.S. adults (69%) say they have come across at least some completely made-up news related to the 2020 election. About a third of Republicans (35%) say they’ve seen a lot while another 44% have seen some. About half as many Democrats (17%) say they’ve seen a lot and 45% have seen some. The study also finds differences on this measure by media diet, primarily among Republicans.
• While Americans overall place blame on political leaders and activist groups for made-up news about the election, differences emerge by party. For example, 53% of Republicans blame journalists for made-up news, compared with just 9% of Democrats.