Nearly 3 in 4 Republicans doubt that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election legitimately, according to a new poll from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
A total of 71% of GOP respondents said Biden's victory was illegitimate, the UMass poll found.
Among those Republican respondents, 25% said Biden's triumph was "probably not legitimate," and 46% said it was "definitely not legitimate," according to the poll.
Only 6% of GOP respondents said that Biden won the election fairly, and another 15% said he "probably" won it fairly.
Overall, 58% of poll respondents — 91% of Democrats, 54% of independents — said Biden's election was legitimate. More than one-fifth (22%), however, said that it was "definitely not legitimate."
Former President Donald Trump and allies have maintained that voter fraud in several battleground states resulted in Biden winning the election.
"Given the continued questioning of Biden's victory by prominent Republican elected officials, conservative media personalities, and former President Trump, it is no surprise that 7 in 10 Republicans, conservatives, and Trump voters view the results of the 2020 election with skepticism, if not outright disbelief," Tatishe Nteta, an associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst and the poll's director, said in a release.
Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and associate director of the poll, said many Americans have lost faith in the election process.
"Public officials need to shore up faith in how we vote," La Raja said in the release. "The top reason voters don't think Biden's victory was legitimate has to do with belief in fraud — 83% of the poll's respondents cited fraudulent ballots being counted by election officials to help Biden win in several states.
"Roughly the same percentage — 81% — claim that absentee ballots from dead people also helped him. Meanwhile, 76% blamed noncitizens and other ineligible voters who cast ballots. These are extremely worrisome perceptions, and improved faith in the electoral process won't happen until Republicans stop saying the election was stolen."
The UMass survey also found that 80% of Republicans saw the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol as a "protest." Overall, 55% categorized it as a "riot."
Nearly a quarter of Republicans described people who participated in the Jan. 6 events as "patriots," while a similar number said the demonstrators were "antifa."
The UMass Amherst poll was conducted by YouGov from Dec. 14-20, and is based on responses from 1,000 people nationwide. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
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