Trump voters’ skepticism about election administration and voting by mail declines sharply after their candidate’s 2024 victory
Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand how U.S. voters view the 2024 presidential election and the voting process.
For this analysis, we surveyed 9,609 U.S. adults, including 8,072 U.S. citizens who reported having voted in the November election. The survey was conducted Nov. 12-17, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Surveys were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.
Here are the questions used for this report, the topline and the survey methodology.
American voters overwhelmingly say the 2024 elections across the country and in their own communities were run well this year, and they express high levels of confidence that votes were counted accurately.
This stands in stark contrast to four years ago, when far fewer voters expressed confidence. Today, 88% of voters say that elections across the United States were run and administered at least somewhat well, up from 59% of voters in 2020.
This year’s rosier view of election administration is entirely driven by a shift in views among those who voted for Donald Trump for president:
- 93% of Trump voters say the 2024 elections were run and administered at least somewhat well. Four years ago, as Trump was contesting his defeat by Joe Biden, just 21% of his supporters said the elections were run well.
- Voters who supported Kamala Harris for president are less likely today to say the elections this November were run well than Biden’s voters were four years ago. Still, a wide majority of Harris voters (84%) this year say elections across the country were run well.
It’s not unusual in presidential elections for voters who supported the winning candidate to express more confidence in the outcome than those who supported the losing candidate, but the size of the gap in 2020 was particularly large.
Jump to read more about views of the voting process.
The latest national survey by Pew Research Center – conducted Nov. 12-17, 2024, among 9,609 adults (including 8,072 adults who say they voted in the 2024 election) – finds that more positive perceptions of election administration and accuracy this year extend to several specific aspects of elections, including confidence in different voting methods.
In the 2020 presidential election, Trump voters were far less confident than Biden voters in the accuracy of both in-person and mail-in ballot counts. While Republican voters’ confidence in the accuracy of vote counts rebounded somewhat in the 2022 midterm, wide gaps remained.
Today, Trump voters are somewhat more likely than Harris voters to express confidence in the vote counts of in-person ballots, and Harris voters are just 6 percentage points more likely than Trump voters to have confidence in mail-in ballot vote counts.
In-person voting
- 94% of Trump voters are at least somewhat confident that votes cast in person were counted as voters intended, up 30 points from 2020.
- 86% of Harris voters are confident in the counts of in-person ballots. This is 12 points lower than the nearly unanimous confidence in these counts among Biden’s 2020 voters.
Absentee or mail-in voting
- In 2020, just 19% of Trump voters expressed confidence in the count accuracy of ballots cast by mail. Today, 72% of Trump voters are confident that mail and absentee votes in the 2024 election were counted as voters intended.
- Nearly all 2020 Biden voters (95%) were confident in the count of absentee ballots in 2020. A narrower, though still clear, majority of Harris voters (78%) say this about the 2024 election.
Many Trump voters continue to have concerns about people voting illegally
While Trump voters express more confidence about most aspects of election administration and voting, a sizable share continue to register concerns about people who are ineligible casting ballots.
Today, 45% of Trump voters say they are at least somewhat confident that people who were not legally qualified to vote were prevented from casting ballots. While there is more confidence in this than before the election, 55% of Trump voters still say they have little to no confidence ineligible voters were kept from voting.
As was the case before the election, an overwhelming majority of Harris supporters are confident that those not eligible to vote were prevented from casting ballots.
Jump to read more about how preelection expectations match up to postelection perceptions.
Other findings: Voting methods in the 2024 presidential election, views of the campaign and choice in vote
Harris voters were much more likely than Trump voters to cast a ballot by mail. Roughly a third of voters cast their ballots absentee or by mail (35%), while similar shares voted in person before Election Day (32%) and in person on Election Day (34%). Voters were less likely to vote by mail than in 2020. But, as in 2020, Democratic voters were much more likely than Republican voters to cast their ballot by mail (44% vs. 26%).
For more on voting in the 2024 election, see Chapter 2.
Trump voters express more positive views of the presidential campaign after the election. A month prior to the election, just two-in-ten of both Harris and Trump supporters said the 2024 campaign made them feel proud of the country, while about four-in-ten in both groups said it was focused on important policy debates (37% of Trump supporters, 38% of Harris supporters).
Trump voters now reflect on the campaign in rosier terms, while the views of Harris voters have grown more negative. Half of Trump voters now say the campaign made them feel proud, but just 8% of Harris voters say this. And 52% of Trump voters now say the campaign was focused on important policy debates, compared with 18% of Harris voters.
Read more about voters’ reflections on the 2024 campaign here.
Most Trump voters say their vote was for him – rather than against Harris. Mirroring the 2020 presidential race, voters who supported Harris in the election were about equally likely to say their vote was primarily in support of her (49%) as to say it was primarily against Trump (51%). Trump voters in 2024 – like 2020 – were much more likely to say their vote was for Trump (82%) rather than against his opponent (18%).
