More than half of Republicans still think Trump is actual president according to poll

Most Republicans think that Donald Trump should still rightfully be in the White House according to results of a new poll by Reuters-Ipsos.

Many believe that the results of the 2020 election were impacted by illegal voting, the survey released on Tuesday reveals.

Some 53 per cent believe that Mr Trump is the “true president” despite losing to Democrat Joe Biden by approximately 7 million votes in the popular count and 74 electoral college votes.

Overall 75 per cent of those surveyed believe that Mr Biden is the rightful president.

However, approximately 61 per cent of Republicans think the 2020 election was “stolen” from Mr Trump, despite there being no tangible evidence to indicate that.

As many as 56 per cent of respondents who identified as Republicans said they believed there had been illegal voting or “election rigging”.

The poll also found that only 30 per cent of Republicans feel confident that absentee or mail-in ballots were accurately counted, compared to 86 per cent of Democrats and 55 per cent of independents.

Some 87 per cent of Republicans believe it is important that the government place new limits on voting to protect elections from fraud.

Mr Trump has baselessly repeated this claim since the polls closed on 3 November leading to the deadly insurrection of 6 January in which pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol.

The poll reveals that 65 per cent of Republicans either somewhat disagree or strongly disagree that Mr Trump is at least partly to blame for the riot. Approximately 86 per cent of Democrats and 61 per cent of Independents feel he is to blame.

Mr Trump continues to attack those in the Republican Party who do not subscribe to his beliefs, such as recently ousted former party House chair Liz Cheney.

Conducted between 17-19 May, the Reuters-Ipsos survey of 2,007 adults underlines how much influence Mr Trump’s rhetoric continues to have over the Republican electorate. The sample includes 909 Democrats, 754 Republicans, and 196 Independents.

Naturally, Mr Trump seized on the results of the poll on Tuesday, blogging about it to demonstrate his continued support among the party’s base as opposed to any loyalty towards the traditional conservative wing of the GOP.

In terms of the 2024 election, 63 per cent of Republicans think that Mr Trump should run for president again, compared to only 8 per cent of Democrats and 23 per cent of independents.

On Monday, the former president was the debut guest on Dan Bongino’s new radio show in the timeslot once occupied by the late Rush Limbaugh.

Mr Trump declined to commit to running again for office in 2024.

“Well, I’ll tell you we’re going to make you very happy and we’re going to do what’s right,” said Mr Trump. “We’ve done a great job for our country. We’ve rebuilt the military. We built the greatest economy ever, twice. We’ll let you know when the time is right but we’re looking at it very seriously.”