One of the central themes of the 2024 presidential election is that Americans exist within at least two different information environments. This has long been the case, of course, and this same divide affected 2016 and 2020 as well. In 2024, though, the bubble that surrounds former president Donald Trump has become more robust, with fewer critics within his party and a social media landscape less interested in paying the cost of limiting the spread of misinformation — or even actively embracing it.
Polling released by CBS News on Sunday presented a remarkable demonstration of the divide between Democrats and Republicans on basic matters of fact and on the reliability of different sources of information.
The poll, conducted for the network by YouGov, presented respondents with several politicians (including Trump, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris) and groups that provide data and opinions to the American people. Respondents were asked whether that information was generally accurate, well-intentioned but often wrong or generally a source of intentional falsehoods.
On net, the group that was most trusted were the respondents’ friends and family, who were much more likely to be seen as telling the truth than lying. They were followed by medical scientists — but here there was a wide partisan divide. Democrats were much more likely to say that scientists told the truth; Republicans were more divided.
And so it went down the line. Most sources of information were more likely to be seen as liars than truth-tellers. The source partisans were most likely to describe as truthful than dishonest was their party’s candidate. The source most likely to be described as dishonest instead of honest? The other party’s candidate.
It is objectively the case that Kamala Harris says untrue things less often than does Donald Trump. But, then, it is also the case that government economic reports are true, but Republicans — broadly skeptical of non-Trump authority — are more likely to say that those reports are lies than they are to say that they are true.
That particular distrust shows up in another set of questions in the CBS poll. Respondents were asked to evaluate the state of various measurable elements of the economy and government: stock prices, jobs data and border crossings. Stocks are up, as is the number of people working, while border crossings have fallen in recent weeks. Yet Republicans said either that the opposite was true or that things hadn’t changed much.
Even Democrats didn’t understand that border crossings had fallen. But not many Democrats joined a majority of Republicans in telling the pollsters that the Biden administration was intentionally trying to bring more immigrants into the United States — with 4 in 5 of those who said Biden was claiming that it was so those immigrants could vote illegally in American elections.
This is utter nonsense, promoted by Trump and his allies because it lets him inveigh against his two favorite targets: immigrants and purported fraud. Despite it being false and despite there being no evidence that it isn’t, half of Republicans think that Biden is intentionally doing this.
Nearly half of Republicans also told YouGov that they believed there would be “widespread” fraudulent and illegal voting in November, which there will not be. Nine in 10 Republicans said they thought there would be at least some fraud in the election. That’s not surprising, given that only 3 in 10 admitted that the 2020 election legitimately resulted in Biden’s victory.
The poll went a useful step further, though, asking nearly half of the Republicans who claimed there would be rampant fraud where this fraud would occur. Nearly all of that group said it would occur in “major cities and urban areas,” meaning that about 44 percent of Republicans think there will be widespread fraud. Relatively few think it will happen in rural areas.
It’s not hard to read between the lines here, but the poll went a step further, making the subtext overt. Most of the Republicans who thought there would be rampant fraud agreed that it would probably occur in “racial minority communities.” Less than half thought it would occur in “mostly White communities.”
Most Republicans also said that if Trump loses in November he and his party should “challenge and investigate the results.”
Again, there is no evidence at all that significant fraud occurred in 2020, despite four years of Trump and his allies desperately trying to uncover any. There is no reason to think that it will occur this year, either. But nearly half of Republicans think widespread fraud will occur, heavily in areas with Black and Hispanic communities.
In part because they think illegal voting happens all the time.
Because they think Democrats encourage it.
Because they think Democrats are liars and a Democrat-led government lies.
Because it is and has been useful for Trump to claim that they do.