Half of Americans consider Donald Trump a fascist (POLL)

Half the country considers former President Donald Trump a fascist, amplifying concerns raised in recent days by Vice President Kamala Harris and former members of the Trump administration. Far fewer people in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll make the same accusation against Harris.

Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often strays from the truth, again more than they say about Harris. But Harris is being criticized more than Trump for pandering to votes by promoting policies she has no intention of implementing – underscoring the challenges facing both candidates as the fur flies in their presidential race. more and more passionate.

In one of the most incendiary salvos, 49% of registered voters in the national survey say Trump is a fascist, defined as “a political extremist who seeks to act like a dictator, disrespects individual rights and threatens or uses force against its opponents.” “Less than half, 22 percent, consider Harris a fascist by this definition.

Harris said Wednesday that Trump is a fascist, a week after agreeing with an interviewer that his campaign was “about fascism.” A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former Trump chief of staff, and a former secretary of defense in his administration have also been quoted recently as calling Trump a fascist, and the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden thinks so too. Trump, for his part, has repeatedly called Harris a fascist, a Marxist and a communist.

See PDF for full results.

Results for this question include 44% who say only Trump is a fascist, 18% who say only Harris is a fascist, and 5% who say both are. Only 32% say neither is fascist in this poll conducted for ABC by Langer Research Associates with field work by Ipsos.

It’s common for people to have very negative opinions about the candidates or political figures they oppose, especially in the heat of a presidential campaign. Either way, this conclusion marks the divisions – and high stakes – of this particular competition.

Perceptions of fascism are linked to partisanship: 87% of Democrats call Trump a fascist, compared to 46% of independents and 12% of Republicans. Harris, for her part, is considered a fascist by 41% of Republicans, 20% of independents and 3% of Democrats.

It’s similar in terms of candidate support. Eighty-seven percent of registered voters who support Harris for president consider Trump a fascist. Far fewer Trump supporters, 42%, call Harris a fascist. Among registered voters who think Trump is a fascist, 8% support him anyway.

Interviews for this investigation were completed Tuesday, before the New York Times published an interview in which John Kelly, a retired general and former secretary of Homeland Security and Trump’s chief of staff, said that Trump “certainly fits into the general definition of fascist, that’s for sure.”

Veracity

Trump also faces disproportionate criticism in the area of ​​truth. Sixty-five percent of registered voters say he often says things that aren’t true. Fewer, but still 49%, say the same about Harris. Even among his own supporters, 30% say Trump often tells lies.

Harris receives more criticism on another front. Registered voters, by a margin of 15 points, or 57% to 42%, say she mainly makes proposals “that are simply aimed at getting people to vote for her,” and that she does not have the intention to implement them. A little more than half say the same about Trump, but the margin is narrower, 52% to 47%.

The two candidates are closer in another measure – whether they are mainly trying to explain what they would do as president or whether they are mainly trying to avoid explaining it. It’s 47-52% (explain or avoid) for Harris and 48-50% for Trump, hardly an encouraging score in either case.

Trump’s criticism of the truth reflects, at least in part, his false claim that Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. Registered voters reject this claim by a margin of 2 to 1, or 65% to 33 % — and among the two-thirds who say Biden won, 86% say Trump says things that aren’t true very or fairly often — including 72% who say he does that “very” often.

As with views on fascism, candidates’ attitudes toward truthful, complacent, and avoidant explanations are strongly linked to partisanship and ideology. For example, 95% of Democrats and 93% of liberals think Trump often says things that aren’t true; 85% of Republicans and 83% of conservatives say the same thing about Harris.

Yet Trump receives more criticism for truth-telling from his base than Harris does from hers. Thirty-two percent of Republicans and 38 percent of conservatives believe he often doesn’t tell the truth, as do, as we noted, 30 percent of his own supporters. In Harris’ case, far fewer Democrats (10%), liberals (12%), or Harris supporters (still 10%) say she often doesn’t tell the truth.

Crisis?

The disproportionate views that Trump is a fascist and a prevaricator do not generate a much greater sense of crisis if he is elected. On the contrary, it is high for both candidates: among registered voters who do not support Trump, 68% believe that his election would constitute a crisis for the country. Among those who don’t support Harris, almost as many, 64%, say it would be a crisis if she won.

The share of nonpartisans saying it would be a crisis if Harris were elected is essentially unchanged since late August, although it is 9 percentage points higher than when asked about Biden in September 2020 (55%) . Since then, things have remained largely stable for Trump.

Crisis concerns are associated with perceptions of fascism. Among Harris non-supporters who call her a fascist, 84% say it would be a crisis for the country if she were elected. Among those who do not consider her a fascist, fewer, although still 51%, think it would be a crisis.

The gap is even more striking for Trump. Among his non-partisans, 79% of those who think he is a fascist believe that his election would be a crisis. This drops to 22% of those who do not consider him a fascist.

Views about truth are also linked to crisis concerns. Among nonpartisans who think Harris or Trump say the wrong things “very” often, about eight in ten view their respective victories as a crisis. Here again, this figure drops sharply among those who think that candidates do not tell the truth less often.

It’s a relationship that’s a little weaker when it comes to convenience. Seventy-three percent of nonpartisans who view Trump as complacent think it would be a crisis if he were elected; that’s 68% for Harris.

Methodology

This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the Ipsos KnowledgePanel® probability system from October 18-22, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,808 adults, including 2,392 registered voters. The partisan divides are 29%-29%-30%, Democratic-Republican-Independent, among all respondents, and 32%-32%-29% among registered voters. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, including design effect, for the full sample and for registered voters. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.

The investigation was conducted for ABC News by Langer Research Associateswith sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on the ABC News investigation methodology here.