Majority in new poll says Trump won’t concede if he loses

A majority of registered voters expect former President Trump to not concede the election if he loses next week, according to a CNN/SSRS poll released Monday.

A poll released early last week shows 69 percent of registered voters nationwide say they think Trump will not accept the election results, while 30 percent say he will. Only 1 percent say they have no opinion.

The data shows a gradual shift from earlier this year. At the end of January, 74 percent of registered voters said they thought Trump would not concede if he lost, compared with 25 percent who disagreed. A few months later, in June, 72 percent said they thought he would not concede if he lost, while 28 percent said he would concede.

While confidence is growing in the likelihood of Trump conceding, registered voters are still less confident than they were ahead of the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump will concede if he loses.

Trump was already warning about a potentially fraudulent election at the time, pointing to mail-in ballots and similar measures taken due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in mid-August 2020, 55 percent said they expected Trump would not concede if he lost, while 38 percent said he would. In October 2020, 58 percent said they expected Trump would not concede if he lost, while 37 percent disagreed.

In the latest poll, 73 percent said they expect Vice President Harris to concede if she loses, while 26 percent say they don’t expect her to do so. In June, 78 percent said they expect President Biden to concede if he loses, compared with 22 percent who said he would not.

The October poll also shows that 88 percent of registered voters say they believe the loser of a presidential election is obligated to accept the results and accept them once each state officially certifies their vote for president, while 12 percent say they do not .

The Hill reached out to the Trump campaign for a response.

The latest poll was conducted Oct. 20-23, 2024, and included 1,704 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.18 percentage points.

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