Election Trust Cracks as Voters Fear State Power

President Donald Trump has pursued greater federal authority over elections through executive actions and lawsuits as voters report falling confidence that their ballots will be counted accurately. The Constitution gives states and Congress control over voting processes, and Trump’s efforts to expand federal influence have failed so far.

Democrat Daemien Williams, 50, of Centreville, Illinois, put the distrust plainly: “I don't put anything past these people.” He added, “My trust level is at its all-time low.” Williams said he would still vote, calling it the only power he had to choose his representatives: “If you take that away from America, you pretty much take away the foundation of this country.”

Who Controls the Ballot

In the AP-NORC poll, Democrats’ confidence that votes would be counted accurately fell from 75% in 2022 to 55% this year. Overall, 45% of voters said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in vote accuracy, down from 50% in 2022. Republican confidence rose from 26% to about 38%, while independents remained at 34%.

Williams worried Trump and Republicans might intimidate voters or seize ballots. Trump signaled that federal prosecutors should look for fraud and suggested legal challenges if election results did not go his way. His administration sued California officials over alleged noncitizens on voter rolls and warned election workers who process noncitizen ballots that they could face criminal investigation and prosecution.

The administration said it had no plans to send military or immigration agents to patrol polling places. The head of the Department of Homeland Security said immigration officers could conduct targeted operations, such as making an arrest with a warrant. Critics raised concerns about voter intimidation and pointed to a Justice Department plan to deploy 1,000 monitors to voting locations.

Republican Alan Curtis, 67, of Grove, Oklahoma, said he believed election officials would be “running scared” and that people in other political parties feared what Trump might do. Curtis said he still believed Democrats could cheat, an accusation Trump often made without evidence, and expected Trump to challenge anything that looked “out of the ordinary.” Only 17% of registered voters were extremely or very confident the Supreme Court would handle a midterm-related case fairly and without partisanship.

The Limits of the Electoral Choice

The CNN poll found Democrats leading Republicans 49%-39% in voters’ choice for Congress in their districts, their largest lead in CNN polling since just before the 2020 election. More than three-quarters of voters saw the election as a chance to change Washington. Yet 41% said the country would be better off if Democrats won control of Congress, 37% said it would be worse off, and 22% said it would make no difference.

Both parties had net-negative favorability ratings. Among voters with negative views of both parties, 48% favored the Democratic candidate in their district, 28% the Republican, and 18% neither. Ninety percent of this group said their votes were about changing Washington, while 65% said neither party could do a better job of bringing change. The poll records the desire for change—and the narrow choices through which voters are asked to pursue it.

Cost of living was voters’ leading issue. Democrats led 46%-37% among registered voters who named the economy as their top concern, but about three in 10 voters said neither party would do a good job on the economy and cost of living. A similar share said neither party had the right priorities. About four in 10 said neither party would handle corruption better.

The Supreme Court declined to allow the administration’s executive order directing changes at the Postal Service, which intended to restrict mail voting, so the plan did not proceed for the midterms. Independent voter Eugenio Mendez, 49, of Columbia, South Carolina, said he would vote in person because he did not trust a mailed ballot would be counted; he worried Trump could use influence over the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with mail ballots.

California’s Familiar Choice

In California, most voters rated Gavin Newsom’s tenure as governor “poor” or “fair” and wanted his successor to take the state in a different direction. Only 36% rated his performance over the last eight years “good” or “excellent,” and 28% wanted the next governor to continue his policies. Still, Xavier Becerra led Republican Steve Hilton by 20 percentage points.

Jon Cohen, founder and CEO of TrueDot, whose firm conducted the poll, said Becerra “basically wins everyone” among the third of the electorate who want continuity and picks up nearly a third of those who want change. Housing and homelessness were among Newsom’s weakest areas: 28% said he had done a good job on housing, 25% on homelessness, and nearly three in four said he had not handled homelessness well.

Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said: “Gavin Newsom overwhelmingly won five elections in eight years and is the most popular outgoing Governor in the history of PPIC polling the question. It's a shame America's Favorite Governor can't run for another term — he'd crush it!”