Majority of Republicans Believe the Big Lie
Despite no evidence of fraud, new polls show that after the election, the supermajority of Republicans believed Trump’s Big Lie of widespread voter fraud.
Another study shows that nearly half of Republicans believe ‘it was appropriate for legislators in states won by Joe Biden to try to assign their state’s electoral votes to Trump.’ Trump’s radicalized base has set an unprecedented new norm for the Republican Party that openly rejects the democratic transition of power. Both current and future GOP lawmakers must embrace the Big Lie and conspiracy theories in order to appease their base and win their votes.
Republicans’ unwavering fealty to the voter fraud myth underscores an emerging dynamic of party politics: To build a campaign in the modern G.O.P., most candidates must embrace — or at least not openly deny — conspiracy theories and election lies, and they must commit to a mission of imposing greater voting restrictions and making it easier to challenge or even overturn an election’s results. The prevalence of such candidates in the nascent stages of the party primaries highlights how Mr. Trump’s willingness to embrace far-flung falsehoods has elevated fringe ideas to the mainstream of his party.
Pro-Trump demonstrators gathered at a “Stop the Steal” in Las Vegas in November. Across the country, a rising class of Republican challengers has promoted false claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate. Credit: Bridget Bennett for The New York Times