Confidence in the reliability of 2026 midterm elections is lower than that of any national referendum since Pew Research Center began asking the question.
A recent study by Pew found just 55% of Americans believe the November elections will be conducted accurately and fairly, compared to 61% who held that view ahead of the 2024 election, 64% ahead of the 2022 midterms and 59% in the runup to the 2020 election.
A Gallup survey released in July found two-thirds of U.S. adults harbor worries about the upcoming midterms.
“Americans are concerned about election integrity and democratic processes. Their top concerns include political leaders pressuring election officials to change election outcomes (67% are concerned ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’), ballots not being properly handled, counted or secured (57%), and voter intimidation near polling places (52%),” a Gallup report said.
These studies come amid ongoing Trump administration efforts to subvert the elections in part by sowing doubts about the veracity of the contest that will decide all 435 U.S. House seats and a third of U.S. Senate seats.
Since returning to office, Trump has spread lies about election fraud, pushed legislation to limiting voting access and signed executive orders to purge voter rolls, eliminate mail-in balloting and wrest control of elections away from the states, which are constitutionally mandated to administer elections.
While much of the agenda has bogged down in the courts, many red states have complied with Trump’s demand for access to voter rolls in order to create more obstacles to voting.
“In the 18 months since Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump and his administration have seized unprecedented executive branch power to implement extremist and unpopular policies,” the Center for American Progress said in an Aug. 12 report. “Now, to lock in that power and escape accountability, the administration is waging an unconstitutional effort to subvert voters’ will in the November 2026 midterm elections.”
One of the main tactics of authoritarian regimes like the Trump administration is to attempt to erode the checks and balances that undergird free and fair elections, the report said. “As the United States marks 250 years of democratic self-governance, that right — and the republic it sustains — faces the gravest threat from within.”
Pew’s July survey uncovered varying degrees of partisan disparities Americans have in trusting results of the 2026 midterms, with 55% of Republicans expressing confidence in the process compared to 58% of Democrats.
However, GOP confidence in the trustworthiness of the election was up from 47% during the summer of 2024 and 46% in the summer of 2022 — both years when Joe Biden was president. But Republican confidence is lower than it was in the spring of 2020 and in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when Trump was still in office.
For Democrats, confidence in election fairness dipped considerably from the 77% in 2024 and 81% in 2022, Pew reported. “Confidence remains higher than in April 2020, when 46% of Democrats expressed confidence the 2020 election would be conducted fairly and accurately.”
The study also found significant partisan differences when respondents were asked to assess their confidence “that all citizens who want to vote will be able to” in November.
“Republicans have long been more likely than Democrats to express confidence on this question. But the partisan gap was narrower in 2024 and 2022 than it is today,” Pew’s report explained.
This year, 83% of Republicans and 53% of Democrats expressed confidence that any citizen who wants to vote could do so. That share was the same among conservatives in 2022, but much higher four years ago among Democrats, at 66%.
The study found an even wider gap when compared to 2022, when 87% of Republicans and 43% of Democrats believed in the ability of all citizens to vote. Among all Americans, 66% shared that confidence this year compared to 73% in 2022 and 63% in 2020.
A separate Pew survey conducted in April found 89% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats in agreement on the importance of ensuring that all voters who cast ballots in November are actually eligible to do so, while 92% of Republicans and 79% of Democrats said it was important that “no ineligible voters are permitted to vote.”
Republicans are 16 percentage points more likely than Democrats (77% vs. 61%) to say no eligible voters are prevented from voting.
According to the Gallup study, 67% of U.S. adults fear election officials will be pressured to alter voting outcomes, 57% are concerned ballots will be improperly secured and counted, and 52% worry that people near polling stations will attempt to intimidate voters.
A slim majority of Republicans (55%) shared the concern about the pressure on elections officials, compared to 77% of Democrats. However, 66% of Republicans and only 52% of Democrats are afraid ballots will not be properly secured or handled, Gallup reported.