October 21, 2020
Almost half of Americans say they are paying close attention to information on elections and politics, but finding trustworthy information remains difficult. Forty percent find it difficult to know if what the candidates are saying is true or not, and 38% feel the same when it comes to information about the election generally.
According to the USAFacts/AP-NORC Poll, many are also skeptical that what the candidates say is based in fact – 51% think that Donald Trump’s campaign messages are rarely or never based in a fact, and 39% think the same about Biden’s campaign. However, few people are having trouble finding information about how to register to vote (11%) or cast their ballot (16%).
Trust in government information on many topics remains low, and over half of Americans (59%) say that the political beliefs of the president have a lot of influence on the information provided by the government. Compared to 2019, Americans are even more likely to believe that a reliance on different facts is a cause of political division in the country (43% vs. 37%).
The nationwide USAFacts/AP-NORC Poll was conducted September 15-25, 2020 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,043 adults. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is +/- 4.1 percentage points.
- Suggested Citation: USAFacts/AP-NORC Poll. (October, 2020).“State of the Facts 2020: Elections.” [https://apnorc.org/projects/state-of-the-facts-2020-elections/]
