With less than two weeks until the midterms, a wide majority of voters say that they largely trust that the results of the upcoming election will be accurate, according to a new New York Times/Siena poll. But the poll finds that many harbor concerns that Republicans could try to overturn the results of the election.
The findings come as President Trump has frequently sought to sow doubts about the integrity of elections, and as his administration has pushed unfounded claims of rampant fraud in the voting system and warned of its potential manipulation by foreign powers.
But nearly three-quarters of voters said they trust the accuracy of elections, including large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents. A small but growing share of voters said that they do not trust that the results will be accurate, though: 23 percent now say this, the poll found, up from 17 percent who said the same of the 2024 presidential election.
“Elections have always been fair and accurate for the history of the United States,” said Jonathan Wall, a 62-year-old lawyer living in Greensboro, N.C. “ I truly believe that the results will be counted accurately.”
Mr. Wall, a Democrat, said that even as he personally believes the election will be fair, he worries about fake accusations being made about the elections not being accurate.
Half of likely voters said that they were worried about the possibility that Republicans might try to overturn the results of the November election through illegal means. By comparison, 31 percent of voters said they were worried about Democrats doing the same.
“I never had too many thoughts about an election being stolen until Donald Trump came into office,” said Kristina Sterling, a 56-year-old interior designer living in Denver. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it just makes me nervous with the amount of crazy things that have gone on.”
Ms. Sterling, an independent, said she had voted Republican for most of her life but has leaned more toward Democrats in recent years. She said she worries about the results this fall. “I don’t even know what Republicans could do to mess with the election, but it scares me that they could do something,” she said.
Eighty-six percent of Democrats and just over half of independents expressed concern that Republicans would try to overturn the results of the election through illegal means.
Then there is the question of who gets to vote in the first place. In the run-up to the midterms, the Trump administration has sought to prioritize purging noncitizens from state voter rolls, even though experts say that instances of noncitizens voting are extremely rare.
A majority of voters said they were more concerned that some eligible voters would not have a chance to vote than about the possibility of voter fraud. That is a reversal since 2024, when voters were more concerned that some people would cast votes illegally.
The party divisions on that question are stark. While 85 percent of Republicans said they were more worried that some people would cast votes illegally, 86 percent of Democrats said they were more worried that some eligible voters would be deprived of their vote.
There were some areas of agreement across the political divide. Concern about the future of democracy is shared by both Democrats and Republicans. More than three-quarters of voters said that they think American democracy is under threat, a number that has remained largely consistent since 2022.
For all the polarization and vitriol of the current moment, most voters said that they did not view members of the opposing party as “the enemy.” Large majorities (78 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats) said that they viewed members of the opposing party as fellow Americans they disagree with politically.
But the share who sees the other side as “the enemy” has grown. About 22 percent of Democrats now say they see Republicans as the enemy, up from 20 percent who said Mr. Trump’s supporters were the enemy in 2024. And 20 percent of Republicans now say the same of Democrats, up from 15 percent who said the same of former Vice President Kamala Harris’s supporters in 2024.
Voters are uniformly worried about this growing divide. Nearly 60 percent say the country is too divided to solve its problems. That is a reversal since September of 2020, when a majority of voters said the country can still address its problems.
“So many people lose friends over this,” said Gregg Blanchard, 54, a political independent living outside of Houston, Tex. “I have friends across the political spectrum. But I think that’s increasingly rare.”
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