Breaking Research: One in Four Republican Trump Supporters Say He Should Declare Election Results Invalid and Do Whatever it Takes to Assume Office if He Loses the Election

WASHINGTON (October 16, 2024) — Ahead of a deeply divisive presidential election, PRRI released today the 15th annual PRRI American Values Survey (AVS), in partnership with the Brookings Institution. The survey of more than 5,000 Americans finds that the majority of Americans reject political violence and see democracy as being under threat. Additionally, the survey finds a concerning percentage of Americans, particularly Republicans with favorable views of Trump, continue to support political violence and election denial.  

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According to the 2024 PRRI American Values Survey, nearly one in four Republicans who hold a favorable view of Trump (23%), and 19% of all Republicans, say that if Donald Trump loses the election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office. Only 12% of Democrats say Kamala Harris should do the same.

PRRI President and Founder Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., said, “Fueled by Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, about one in four Republican Trump supporters say they support Trump taking office by force if he loses the election, and three in ten say they believe political violence might be necessary to save the country.”  

Additional survey findings include:  



• Republicans are twice as likely (27%) as independents (14%) or Democrats (12%) to agree that armed everyday citizens should be poll watchers, even if this makes some voters uncomfortable.  
• Most Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump (62%) and those convicted for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection are being held hostage by the government (46%). 
• While most Americans reject political violence, nearly three in ten Republicans (29%) believe that “true American patriots” may have to resort to violence to save the country, compared with 16% of independents and 8% of Democrats.  
• In a two-way presidential race, religious subgroups’ support for candidates looks similar to 2020. White evangelical Protestants remain the strongest backers of Trump (81%), followed by white Catholics (61%) and white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (60%). More than eight in ten (83%) of Black Protestants back Harris, as do 70% of religiously unaffiliated Americans and 61% of Hispanic Catholics. 

When it comes to the issues that matter most to Americans ahead of the election, more than six in ten Americans rate increasing costs of housing and everyday expenses as a critical issue to their vote in November, including 69% of Republicans, 61% of independents, and 57% of Democrats. On other issues, Republicans rank immigration (71%) and crime (57%), as critical issues. For Democrats, the health of our democracy (61%) and abortion (55%) dominate their most pressing concerns. 

The 2024 PRRI American Values Survey also finds that American attitudes about immigration policies and views toward immigrants have grown more conservative. Most Americans (56%) say that undocumented immigrants living in the United States should be given a pathway to become citizens, down from 63% in 2013. Support for building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico has also grown from 41% in 2016 to 51% today. Republicans (88%) are more than four times as likely as Democrats (21%) to support building such a wall.   

The vast majority of Americans (85%) oppose laws that make it illegal for people to seek out in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to have a child including strong majorities of Americans across faith traditions who oppose such laws. Nearly three-fourths of Americans (73%) favor requiring Supreme Court justices to retire at a certain age or after a certain number of years instead of serving for life.