A new AP-NORC poll exposes a troubling collapse in voter confidence ahead of the November midterms. Democrats are growing more suspicious, Republicans remain deeply skeptical, and faith in the Supreme Court is alarmingly low.
The Ballots Haven’t Been Counted. The Doubts Are Already Here.
America is approaching another election with a problem that cannot be solved simply by declaring a winner.
Millions of voters are questioning whether they can trust the process itself.
With the November 3, 2026, midterm elections approaching, new polling from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals an unsettling reality: confidence in American elections is deteriorating across political lines, even as Democrats and Republicans disagree sharply about what threatens the system.
The numbers tell a story that goes far beyond Donald Trump, the Democratic Party, or any single election.
The deeper question is what happens to a democracy when voters begin losing confidence in the institutions responsible for protecting their votes.
Democrats Are Losing Confidence. Republicans Still Have Less.
According to the October 21 AP-NORC findings, only 45% of registered American voters express substantial confidence that ballots in the upcoming midterms will be counted accurately.
That figure stood at 50% before the 2022 midterm elections.
The partisan breakdown is particularly revealing.
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Among Democratic voters, confidence has fallen dramatically, from 75% in 2022 to just 55% in 2026.
Republicans have moved in the opposite direction. Their confidence has increased from 26% to 38% over the same period.
Independent voters remain deeply skeptical, with just 34% expressing substantial confidence.
Confidence that election votes will be counted accurately
2022
2026
0%25%50%75%100%DemocratsRepublicansIndependentsAll voters
Source: AP-NORC polling of registered voters, 2022 and 2026.
The political implications are significant.
Democrats who once expressed considerable confidence in American elections are becoming more doubtful under Trump’s second administration. Republicans, meanwhile, are expressing greater confidence than they did four years ago, although most still do not report high confidence.
These findings do not establish that either party’s concerns are justified. They reveal how differently Americans perceive the same electoral system.
And that raises an uncomfortable question.
Is confidence in American democracy increasingly determined by which political party occupies the White House?
Trump and the Battle Over Election Authority
President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape federal election policy have become a major source of concern among Democratic voters.
His administration has pursued executive actions and legal challenges involving election procedures, voter registration and mail-in ballots.
Those efforts have encountered judicial resistance, reflecting the constitutional division of election authority among states, Congress and the federal government.
Trump and his supporters have argued that stricter election safeguards are necessary to protect voting integrity.
Critics contend that some proposed restrictions could make voting more difficult for eligible Americans and expand presidential influence over a process traditionally administered by state and local officials.
The distinction matters.
Election security is a legitimate public concern. So is ensuring that eligible citizens can cast ballots without unnecessary obstacles.
But neither concern, by itself, proves that widespread fraud or systematic voter suppression is occurring.
The challenge is determining which proposed safeguards genuinely strengthen elections and which could create new problems.
The Supreme Court Faces Its Own Confidence Problem
Perhaps one of the most striking findings concerns the institution Americans may ultimately depend upon to resolve disputed election results.
Only 17% of registered voters say they are extremely or very confident that the United States Supreme Court would handle a midterm election case fairly and without partisanship.
That is down from 24% in October 2024.
Half of registered voters say they have little or no confidence in the court’s ability to handle such disputes impartially.
Those numbers deserve attention.
Courts are supposed to resolve legal disagreements through evidence, established law and constitutional principles.
Public confidence does not determine whether a judicial decision is legally correct. Nevertheless, when trust in judicial impartiality erodes, even lawful rulings may struggle to gain broad public acceptance.
An election dispute becomes more difficult to resolve politically when large portions of the public distrust the institution delivering the judgment.
Election Interference Means Different Things to Different Voters
The AP-NORC survey also reveals sharply divided perceptions of election interference.
Approximately nine in ten Democratic voters consider attempts by the president to influence election outcomes a major problem.
Only about two in ten Republican voters share that assessment.
Republican voters express stronger concerns about ineligible voting and election fraud.
According to the research, 73% of Republican voters consider voter fraud a major problem, compared with 63% before the 2024 election and 59% before the 2022 midterms.
Democrats are considerably less likely to identify voter fraud as a major concern.
Yet there are areas of common ground.
Voters across party lines express concerns about artificial intelligence-generated misinformation, including fabricated political content capable of misleading the public.
That threat introduces another layer of uncertainty into elections already surrounded by distrust.
A convincing fake recording, manipulated video or misleading online claim can circulate widely before investigators establish what actually happened.
The danger is not simply that voters may believe false information.
It is also that authentic evidence may be dismissed as fabricated.
Americans Agree on Some Election Safeguards
Despite intense partisan disagreement, the polling identifies policies with considerable public support.
Seventy-two percent of registered voters favor requiring valid photo identification at polling places.
Another 67% support requiring proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.
Support is lower for other proposed election procedures.
Fifty-four percent favor allowing eligible citizens to register and vote on the same day, while 46% support automatically sending mail-in ballots to registered voters.
These findings complicate the idea that Americans are divided into two entirely opposing camps.
Many voters appear to support election verification measures while also holding differing views about how accessible voting should be.
The important policy questions involve implementation, constitutional requirements, eligible voters’ access and whether proposed changes address documented problems.
The Question Nobody Can Afford to Ignore
There is a fundamental difference between questioning election procedures and claiming that an election has been stolen.
The first can be an essential part of democratic accountability.
The second requires credible evidence.
Public distrust should never be treated as proof of misconduct. At the same time, dismissing every concern simply because it comes from a political opponent does little to strengthen confidence.
America’s election administrators face the difficult task of maintaining secure, accessible and transparent voting systems while political leaders and citizens scrutinize their decisions.
Independent audits, clear explanations of voting procedures, transparent reporting and evidence-based investigations can all help voters understand how elections function.
But rebuilding trust also requires political leaders to apply consistent standards, regardless of which party benefits from an outcome.
November 3 Is Approaching. Trust Remains Unsettled.
The 2026 midterms will determine the composition of Congress and help shape the remainder of Trump’s presidency.
But the AP-NORC findings point to another issue that will remain important regardless of the results.
A growing share of Americans is approaching Election Day with doubts about the system responsible for recording their choices.
Democrats have become substantially less confident. Republicans have become somewhat more confident but remain skeptical. Independents continue to express low trust.
Meanwhile, confidence in the Supreme Court’s ability to resolve election disputes impartially remains exceptionally weak.
None of these findings demonstrates that the coming election will be conducted improperly.
They do, however, expose a serious public-confidence problem.
A democracy depends on more than counting votes correctly. It also depends on demonstrating, through transparent procedures and credible evidence, that those votes were counted correctly.
And that responsibility does not belong to one political party.
It belongs to everyone entrusted with protecting the electoral process.
The question Americans should be asking is not whether they will trust an election when their preferred candidates win.
It is whether they will demand the same standards of evidence, transparency and accountability when their candidates lose.
Because those standards are what make elections meaningful.
Sources
Associated Press — Democrats’ Faith in Election Results Is Falling but Still Exceeds Republicans’, AP-NORC Poll Finds (October 21, 2026)
AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — Just Under Half of Voters Are Very Confident That Votes in the Upcoming Midterms Will Be Counted Accurately (October 21, 2026)
AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — Few Voters See Either Party as Able to Solve Important Problems (October 3, 2026)
