Partisan Gap Over Confidence In Elections Shrinks As Midterms Near, New Poll Finds

Democratic and Republican voters now have similar levels of trust in elections, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center released Tuesday.

The poll, which asked registered voters their expectations for how well the midterms will be run and administered, found that 72% of voters backing Democratic House candidates and 73% of those backing Republicans say they think the elections nationwide will be very or somewhat well-run.

This is also the first time Republicans’ confidence in election administration has edged above the Democrats’ since 2018. Confidence among GOP voters plunged 37 points to 50% in October 2020 after President Donald Trump began casting doubt on the security of pandemic-disrupted elections. The confidence improved to 57% in 2024 and surged with Trump’s return to the White House.

For Democrats, it was the opposite story. Confidence in elections peaked at 90% two years ago before dropping 18 points this year.

The changes — seemingly tied to whoever controls the White House — come despite the fact that the federal government plays very little role in the administering of elections, which are generally run on the state or local level.

Still, voters across parties are broadly confident in the elections in their communities. Ninety percent of Republican voters and 91% of Democrats say they think their community’s election will be run well. Voters’ trust in their local elections has barely shifted since 2018 — overall, Democrats are down six points from the 2024 high but remain highly supportive, while Republicans inched up two points from 2024.

But even as the partisan gap in confidence in election administration is closing, voters from the two parties still have different concerns over how elections will be run.

Democrats remain more confident in mail and absentee voting than Republicans, but their confidence that such ballots will be counted as voters intend has dropped from 88% in the 2022 midterms to 64% this year, and a smaller share of Democratic voters say they plan to return their ballots by mail. Only 42% of Republican voters say they are very or somewhat confident in mail voting.

This comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to restrict mail voting. The Supreme Court has blocked the changes from going into effect this year, but some Democratic voters, who typically vote by mail at a higher rate, have signaled that they are changing how they vote.

Democrats are also more concerned than Republicans that all legally qualified voters will be able to vote this year, amid the Trump administration’s continued efforts to crack down on alleged voter fraud. Just 72% of Democratic voters say they are confident all eligible voters will be able to cast ballots if they want to, compared with 90% of Republicans.

The poll, which was conducted before the Department of Justice sued California to block alleged noncitizen votes, found a wide partisan gap in confidence that noncitizens will be stopped from voting. Republican voters are far more concerned about noncitizen voting than Democrats. Just 45% of Republicans, compared to 90% of Democrats, say they are confident that noncitizens will not be allowed to vote.

Pew surveyed 3,917 registered voters from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 1.8 percentage points, with subgroups having larger margins of error.