2/3 of Americans Expect Coronavirus to Disrupt Presidential Election

By Staff, Agencies

Two thirds of Americans think the Presidential election, due to be held in just over six months' time, will be disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey.

The figure meant that more people thought the election would be disrupted than were at least somewhat confident that the election will be fair and accurate.

With the coronavirus continuing to impact most areas of life, 67% of Americans surveyed said they thought there would be some disruption to the election resulting from the virus, but the results were not evenly split between the supporters of the two main parties.

The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center, found that 80% of Democrats and Democratically-inclined independents expected there to be disruption, against just half of Republicans and Republican-leaners.

The survey also found growing support for postal voting, which has been touted as an alternative which would allow for the election to be conducted while maintaining social distancing. 

Overall, 70% of respondents said that people should be allowed to vote by post if they wanted to, including 44% who strongly supported postal voting.

But voters were split along the party divide on the issue. Overwhelmingly, Democrats favored anyone being able to vote by mail if they wanted to, [87%], a figure which includes nearly two thirds [63%] who strongly favored the policy.

Republicans, meanwhile, are evenly split on the issue of universal postal voting, with 49% in favor and 50% against.

And just over half - 52% - of Americans said that all elections ought to be conducted by postal ballot, up from 34% in 2018, an increase of 18 percentage points. However, this increase was mostly driven by a rise in Democrat support for the measure, which rose from 40% to 69% in two years.

At the same time period, Republican support for conducting all elections via mail increased only marginally, from 26% to 32%. This sharp rise in Democrat support has widened the partisan gap on the issue, from 14 points to 37.

The survey was conducted April 7-12 among 4,917 US adults on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.