Half of Americans think Donald Trump is a fascist: POLL

Half the country sees the former president Donald Trump like a fascist, increasing concern raised in recent days Vice President Kamala Harris and former members of the Trump administration. Far fewer people in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll make the same accusations against Harris.

Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often strays from the truth, again more than that about Harris. But Harris has faced more criticism than Trump for pandering to votes by pushing policies she has no intention of enacting, underscoring challenges for both candidates as their increasingly bitter presidential race dissipates.

In one of the most incendiary salvos, 49% of registered voters in a national poll said Trump is a fascist, defined as “a political extremist who seeks to act like a dictator, ignores individual rights and threatens or uses force against his opponents.” ” Less than half of those surveyed (22%) consider Harris a fascist by this definition.

Harris called Trump a fascist on Wednesday.a week after agreeing with an interviewer that his campaign was “about fascism.” The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump’s former chief of staff and a former secretary of defense in his administration also recently called Trump a fascist, and 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, as well as a Marxist and 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 fascists. Just 32% of those surveyed believe that none of them are fascists in this poll conducted for the ABC Langer Research Associates with field work Ipsos.

People often have extremely negative views of candidates or politicians they oppose, especially in the midst of a presidential campaign. However, this finding highlights the controversy and high stakes in this particular contest.

Perceptions of fascism are linked to party affiliation, with 87% of Democrats calling Trump a fascist, compared with 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.

The same goes for supporting candidates. Eighty-seven percent of registered voters who support Harris for president think Trump is a fascist. Far fewer Trump supporters (42%) label Harris a fascist. Among registered voters who think Trump is a fascist, 8% still support him.

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

Truthfulness

Trump also faces disproportionate criticism from the truth department. Sixty-five percent of registered voters say he often says things that are not true. Fewer, but still 49%, say the same about Harris. Even among his own supporters, 30% say Trump often tells lies.

Harris is receiving more criticism on another front. Registered voters by a 15-point margin (57% to 42%) say she is mostly putting forward proposals “that are simply designed to get people to vote for her” rather than something she intends to implement. Just over half say the same about Trump, but the difference is closer: 52% to 47%.

These two candidates are closer to each other on another criterion: whether they are mainly trying to explain what they will do as president, or whether they are mainly trying to avoid explanations. For Harris, the figure is 47-52% (explain vs. avoid), and for Trump it is 48-50%, which is hardly an encouraging indicator anyway.

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

As with views on fascism, candidates’ attitudes toward truth-telling, complicity, and equivocation are closely tied to party affiliation and ideology. For example, 95% of Democrats and 93% of liberals believe that Trump often says things that are not true; 85% of Republicans and 83% of conservatives say the same about Harris.

However, Trump has received more criticism for telling the truth in his campaign than Harris did in hers. Thirty-two percent of Republicans and 38% of conservatives say he often doesn’t tell the truth, as do 30% of his own supporters, as noted. In Harris’ case, far fewer Democrats (10%), liberals (12%) or Harris supporters (again 10%) say she often doesn’t tell the truth.

Crisis?

A disproportionate view of Trump as a fascist and a draft dodger will not lead to a much greater sense of crisis if he is elected. Instead, it’s high for both candidates: Among registered voters who don’t support Trump, 68% say his election would be a crisis for the country. Among those who don’t support Harris, nearly as many (64%) say there will be a crisis if she wins.

The share of non-supporters saying Harris’ election would be a crisis has remained virtually unchanged since late August, although 9 percentage points higher than when they were asked about Biden in September 2020 (55%). Since then, the situation has generally remained stable for Trump.

The problems of the crisis are related to the perception of fascism. Among those who don’t support Harris and call her a fascist, 84% say her election would be a crisis for the country. Among those who don’t think she’s a fascist, fewer, although still 51%, think it will be a crisis.

For Trump, the gap is even more stark. Among those who don’t support him, 79% of those who consider him a fascist say his election would be a crisis. This number drops to 22% among those who do not consider him a fascist.

Views of truth are also related to crisis issues. Among those who don’t support Harris or Trump, who believe Harris or Trump says the wrong thing “very” often, about eight in 10 view their victories as a crisis. Again, this drops sharply among those who believe candidates are at least as likely to tell the truth.

This is a slightly weaker connection to pimping. Seventy-three percent of those who don’t support Trump and believe Trump panders to them believe his election would be a crisis; for Harris it’s 68%.

Methodology

The ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online through the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel October 18-22, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,808 adults, including 2,392 registered voters. Party splits are 29%-29%-30%, Democrats-Republicans-Independents among all respondents and 32%-32%-29% among registered voters. Results have reserve sampling error plus or minus 2 percentage points, including design effects, for both the full sample and registered voters. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.

The survey was prepared for ABC News Langer Research Associateswith Ipsos sampling and data collection. See ABC News poll methodology for details. Here.