Following the results of the 2020 presidential election, which are still contested in some circles, an exclusive Spectrum News/Siena College poll found that Florida voters are split on the potential fairness of the upcoming 2022 midterms.
What You Need To Know
- Voters appeared split on who won in 2020
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As part of the poll, 59% of likely Republican voters in Florida said they believed that former President Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Alternatively, Democrats disagreed — 96% of left-leaning respondents said President Joe Biden won. Among voters with no party affiliation, 59% agreed that Biden won, while 28% said they believed Trump won.
The official vote tallies for the 2020 election show Biden earning just over 81 million votes, and 306 electoral votes, compared to Trump’s more than 74 million votes and 232 electoral votes. Trump has continually disputed the official election results.
Looking ahead to the 2022 midterm election, 49% of Republicans said they did not think the election will be conducted fairly, compared to 44% that reported they believe it will be. Democrats were more likely to believe in the fairness of November’s elections — 79% believe the election will be legitimate, compared to 17% who answered they didn’t think the election would be fair.
Additionally, voters were largely split along partisan lines when asked if the FBI search of Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, was a politically motivated attack or a legitimate law enforcement action.
The poll also found that 76% of Democrats preferred to see Congress controlled by Democrats after 2022, while 83% of Republicans said they preferred for the GOP to gain control. In contrast, respondents with no party affiliation reported that they desired to see a divided Congress where each party controls one of the chambers.
Overall though, 39% of voters, regardless of party affiliation, preferred Congress to be controlled by Republicans, compared to 31% who preferred that Democrats control the legislative branch.
Democrats currently have a strong majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and also have a slim majority in the Senate heading into November.
The Spectrum News/Siena College poll also revealed that Biden has an overall approval rating of 43%. The number improves dramatically among Democrats — 93% of left-leaning respondents approved of the job he’s doing, compared to just 5% of Republicans.
The president’s latest policy proposal of student loan assistance and forgiveness could be a factor in those approval numbers. Overall, 47% of voters approved of the plan, with 83% of Democrats in support, and 78% of Republicans opposed to the idea.
Voters with no party affiliation appeared to be more evenly split on the issue though: 54% opposed it, while 42% supported it.
This Spectrum News/Siena College survey was conducted September 18-25, 2022, by telephone calls in English to 669 likely Florida voters. Telephone sampling was conducted via a weighted stratified dual frame sample of landline and cell phone drawn from the L-2 database of registered voters. Data was statistically adjusted by age, race/ethnicity, education, political party, regional vote pattern in the 2020 election, a combined measure of stated and derived vote likelihood, and gender to ensure representativeness. It has an overall margin of error of + 4.5 percentage points including the design effects resulting from weighting.