Months after claiming the Electoral College vote and thus the Oval Office, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he believes there was widespread voter fraud around the country that likely cost him the popular vote. As it turns out, if there was any voter fraud, a plurality of Americans believe it helped Trump, with many also believing Hillary Clinton benefited, as well.
A new Morning Consult/Politico poll released Wednesday found 35 percent of voters think Trump benefited from voter fraud, compared to 30 percent for the Democrat Clinton. Only 18 percent completely ruled out any voter fraud occurred, and 17 percent either didn’t know or have an opinion.
Party lines were firmly drawn on the issue, the poll found. Fifty-six percent of Democrats claimed illegal voting aided Trump’s upset victory while 48 percent credited voter fraud for Clinton’s final tally. Trump took the Electoral College 306 to 232 and pulled down 62,979,636 votes compared to the former Secretary of State Clinton’s 65,844,610 total, The Cook Political Report’s final results show. Trump lost the popular vote by 2,864,974 votes.
Overall, 25 percent of those polled adhered to Trump’s unproven laments about voter fraud, while 44 percent disagreed. Trump didn’t receive a major boost from his fellow GOP members — only 36 percent said they agreed with the president’s claims, 26 percent said they didn’t believe Trump and 38 percent had no opinion or didn’t know.
The poll was timed immediately after Trump claimed between three million and five million votes were illegal, even though neither he nor any news outlet or non-partisan group had found any evidence of election tampering.
Five days after he was inaugurated, Trump announced on his official Nerobet Twitter account that he planned to launch an investigation into voter fraud, specifically calling out Americans who may be registered in more than one state and deceased registered voters.
I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017
even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017
Two days later, Trump said he was eager to see the findings from Gregg Phillips, a conservative who runs the nonprofit group True the Vote and one of its products, VoteStand, helps users report possible election or voting fraud.
Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand. Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2017
Phillips, as well as members of Trump’s immediately family and his Cabinet nominees, however, were found to be registered in multiple states. Phillips was registered in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi but only recorded a vote in Alabama, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Other reports have discovered Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, his son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin and chief White House strategist and Breitbart founder Steve Bannon were each registered to vote in two states in last year’s election.
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