State of the Facts 2020: Elections

With just a few weeks until the 2020 presidential election, Americans remain concerned and unsure about facts surrounding the election.

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.

Resources

Article

AP-NORC/USAFacts poll: Many in US distrust campaign info

By David Klepper | The Associated Press October 21, 2020 In a presidential election year that has thrown the country’s divisions into stark relief, Americans can agree on this: Misinformation about government…

Expert Contacts

Jennifer Benz

Deputy Director
Public Affairs and Media Research
(617) 316-3702

Trevor Tompson

Senior Vice President
Public Affairs and Media Research
(773) 256-6338

David Sterrett

Senior Research Scientist
Public Affairs and Media Research
(312) 357-7031