By Chris Kahn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly 80% of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 election after most media organizations called the race for the Democrat based on his leads in critical battleground states, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Biden - who needed 270 Electoral College votes to win - had 279 of those votes to 214 for Trump with results in three states not yet complete, according to Edison Research. In the popular vote, Biden got 76.3 million, or 50.7% of the total, to 71.6 million, or 47.6%, for Trump.
The Reuters/Ipsos national opinion survey, which ran from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday, found that 79% of U.S. adults believe Biden won the White House. Another 13% said the election has not yet been decided, 3% said Trump won and 5% said they do not know.
The results were somewhat split along party lines: about six in 10 Republicans and almost every Democrat said Biden won.
Edison Research, which conducts exit polling for Reuters and major media outlets, called the race for Biden on Saturday after he expanded his lead over Trump in Pennsylvania and appeared well on his way to amassing 270 electoral votes.
Trump has yet to recognize the result of the race. He prematurely declared victory well before the votes had been counted and has repeatedly complained without evidence that he is the victim of widespread voter fraud.
His claims have been echoed by members of Trump’s cabinet. U.S. Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal investigations of “substantial” allegations of voting irregularities, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said he foresees “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was part of a broader survey that was conducted Friday to Tuesday and included responses before the presidential race was called.
It showed that 70% of Americans, including 83% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans, trust their local election officials to “do their job honestly.”
The poll also found that 72% think the loser of the election must concede defeat, and 60% think there will be a peaceful transition of power when Trump’s term ends in January.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,363 U.S. adults in all, including 469 respondents who took the poll between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 5 percentage points.
Reporting by Chris Kahn, editing by Ross Colvin, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman
Poll: Most Democrats And Republicans Say Biden Won (He Did)
Joe WalshForbes Staff
Business
I cover breaking news for Forbes.
TOPLINE
An overwhelming majority of Americans from both parties believe President-elect Joe Biden won last week’s election, even though outgoing President Donald Trump and his allies are denying the outcome and attempting to fight back in court, a new poll found.
KEY FACTS
Some 79% of Americans — including around 60% of Republicans — say Biden was the rightful winner, whereas just 3% said Trump won and 13% said the election remains undecided, according to an Ipsos/Reuters poll released Tuesday.
Trump has shown no inclination to concede and congratulate Biden, but 72% of American adults believe the loser of the race ought to concede.
70% of Americans, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, trust their local election officials to be honest, roughly matching with a pre-election YouGov poll that found 63% of voters believe state officials will count votes accurately.
The Ipsos/Reuters poll was conducted between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday, after every major news outlet projected a Biden victory.
Trump has refused to accept defeat, instead opting to spread false voter fraud allegations and press judges to overturn the election’s outcome. His campaign filed a raft of lawsuits alleging voter fraud and opaque counting processes in the week following the election, many of which were either quickly swatted down due to a lack of evidence or focused on narrow issues with little to no bearing on vote-counting. Most experts believe this pugnacious legal strategy has little chance of success, and some Trump aides reportedly see the lawsuits as an opportunity to satiate the president’s desire for a fight rather than a serious legal effort. Some Republican lawmakers have stayed loyal to Trump despite his false claims because they hope for his support in two upcoming runoff elections in Georgia, Politico reported Tuesday. But this poll could indicate many of Trump’s voters have already accepted defeat, even if Trump hasn’t.
BIG NUMBER
4. That’s how many Senate Republicans have congratulated Biden and acknowledged his victory. A far larger number of congressional Republicans have either openly endorsed Trump’s conspiracy theories about voter fraud or, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), supported Trump’s legal challenges while remaining mum about their credibility. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said Tuesday morning that some Republicans have privately accepted Biden’s win, but he did not offer any names.
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