But that message may not resonate with the voters Biden needs to win another term in the White House.
According to a poll by The Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Government, just over half of voters considered likely to swing the presidential election in six battleground states that Biden won narrowly in 2020 said threats to democracy were extremely important to their presidential vote.
But more of them have confidence in Trump than Biden to deal with those threats, and most believe the guardrails in place to protect democracy would hold up even if an autocrat tried to take over the country.
The results present a worrying sign for Mr Biden, who needs to convince voters who may not be enthusiastic about his candidacy to decide that they must reject Mr Trump to protect America’s representative system of government.
“Many Americans don’t view Biden as the guardian of our democracy, and that bodes poorly for his campaign,” said Justin Guest, a professor of policy and government at George Mason University.
The poll was conducted in April and May among 3,513 voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Of those surveyed, 2,255 were classified as “deciders,” meaning people who fit one or more of the following categories: voted in only one of the last two presidential elections, were between the ages of 18 and 25, registered to vote in 2022 or later, were not definitely planning to vote for Biden or Trump this year, or changed their support between 2016 and 2020.
For many voters, democracy is an abstract concept, less concrete than issues like the economy, abortion, or immigration. And yet, regardless of party, most voters report that the issue is important to them. Guest points out that “the vast majority of voters don’t want to lean toward more authoritarian control,” and polls show that representative and direct democratic institutions are much more favorable.
Among key state voters who identify as Biden supporters, 78% consider threats to democracy extremely important, compared with 71% among Trump supporters. Threats to democracy are second only to the economy in the share of overall battleground state voters who say the issue is extremely important.
But what constitutes a threat to democracy varies depending on which candidate voters support, and on the campaign trail, Mr Biden and Mr Trump used starkly different terms to describe the threat.
Trump has attempted to upend the issue of democracy by falsely claiming that he and his allies face multiple criminal investigations as Biden weaponizes the justice system to attack him, while former President Biden continues to undermine the legitimacy of the election with unfounded claims of widespread fraud.
Biden, on the other hand, noted that Trump has vowed to use the justice system to prosecute his opponents in a “retaliation” campaign. The president also highlighted Trump’s boast that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office and the former president’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. 64% of Key State voters and 69% of Deciders said Biden’s 2020 election victory was “legitimate,” but that percentage dropped to 19% among voters who voted for Trump.
More than seven in 10 voters said Trump A third said they would accept the outcome if they lost the election. Nearly half of respondents, 47%, said Trump would try to rule as a dictator if re-elected president, compared with 15% who said Biden would do the same. The poll also found that just over half of Deciders believe Trump, who is facing criminal charges for lying about voter fraud in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, is more likely to say he has been treated fairly, not unfairly, by the criminal justice system.
But more people (38%) trust Trump to deal with threats to democracy compared with 29% who trust Biden on this issue, while 23% have no trust in either major party’s candidate.
The latter category includes Matthew Titterington, 32, of Milan, Mich., who works two part-time jobs as a baker and a pharmacist. He said he doesn’t like either major-party candidate and is leaning toward voting for third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Titterington said the biggest threat to democracy is foreign governments stoking internal divisions among Americans and internal divisions that “prevent us from functioning.” He believes neither Biden nor Trump are prepared to deal with these threats.
“You can’t choose between the two. Trump might be a little stronger in terms of external threats and Biden might be a little stronger in terms of internal threats, but I don’t even know if that’s true,” Titterington said.
Trump supporters (76%) are more likely than Biden supporters (37%) to be dissatisfied with the state of American democracy. Voters are also divided on whether US elections are fair, with 94% of Biden supporters having at least “a lot” of trust in elections, while 78% of Trump supporters have little or no trust in elections. Voters are also divided, with 52% believing elections are fair.
David Dunakasky, a 61-year-old elected law enforcement officer from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, is among those who believe the threat to democracy comes from the left. An ardent Trump supporter, he has echoed Trump’s baseless claims that voter fraud tipped the 2020 election in favor of Biden, suggested FBI agents accompanied the Jan. 6 rioters, and expressed concern that this year’s election may not be legitimate.
He said Democrats claim that Trump is a threat to democracy because they are “mortally afraid of their corruption being exposed” but that this is “100 percent propaganda”.
When asked what type of government they support, roughly 7 in 10 voters in key states support direct democracy, in which citizens, rather than elected officials, vote directly on issues that become law, while nearly 8 in 10 support representative democracy, in which people elected by citizens decide the laws.
About two-thirds of voters in key states say a political system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from Congress or the courts — in short, a dictatorship — is bad. That includes most voters who stuck with Biden and Trump. Nearly six in 10 Biden supporters say this is a “very bad” political system, but that number drops to about four in 10 Trump supporters.
Derin Wallace, 30, of Scottsdale, Arizona, said she would vote for Biden despite being disappointed with some of his policies because she fears Trump will destroy democracy.
“He’s an authoritarian man. Once he’s in power, he’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power. So I shudder to think what he might do if he were to come back to power,” Wallace said.
But many voters don’t think it matters that much. Alex Mayer, a 25-year-old manufacturing and process engineer from Grand Blanc, Michigan, who said he’s likely to support Trump, is among those who believe our democracy will survive no matter who is president.
“I can’t believe democracy is going away. I don’t really think about it. I think democracy is a foundation that will never change,” Meyer said.
Guest, the George Mason University scholar, said that if voters “take that system of checks and balances for granted,” that’s a problem for Biden.
“Voters feel confident that Congress and the judicial system will protect America from the worst of former President Trump’s abuses,” he said. “I think it will be President Biden’s job over the next four months to communicate that democracy cannot be taken for granted.”
of Decisive vote The survey was conducted by The Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Government between April 15 and May 30, 2024 among a stratified random sample of 3,513 voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The sample was drawn from an L2 database of voters in each state and was contacted by mail, telephone (including calls and text messages), email and completed the survey online or over the phone. The results for the overall sample of voters in key states have a sampling margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, with an even wider margin of error for the decider sample and those who are certain to vote for either Trump or Biden.
