Donald Trump Makes Very Astonishing Claim About the ‘Rigged’ 2020 Election: ‘82% of the Country…’

As Donald Trump runs for the Republican presidential nomination , he continues to make familiar assertions from his time in office, such as the extent of his border wall and the turnout at his rallies. Recently, Trump asserted that 82% of the nation believes the 2020 election was rigged against him, referencing a poll that seems elusive, according to HuffPost . Seeking validation for this assertion, Trump informed supporters at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, over the weekend that the overwhelming majority of Americans shared his belief that the election had been unfairly taken from him.

At a rally on Saturday, former President Trump said, “What happened at that last election is a disgrace, and we’re not going to let it happen again, we’re not going to let it happen again. Did you ever notice they go after the people that want to find out where the cheating was and, by the way, 82% of the country understands that it was a rigged election, OK? You can’t have a country with that.” According to Newsweek , he further added, “A poll came out, 82%, but they go after the people, they don’t go after the people that rigged the election, they go after the people that looking, they’re looking for the people that rigged the election.”

Furthermore, he continued, “And that’s the people they go after. They got away with something; they’ll never get away with it again.” Nevertheless, there is no proof for this assertion. The nearest evidence that aligns with this claim is a 2021 study by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) , which revealed that 82% of Republicans—not the entire country—who place the most trust in Fox News stated that they either completely or mostly agreed that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ from Trump.

Furthermore, 31% of the total survey respondents, regardless of their political affiliations, either completely or mostly agreed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Additionally, another poll conducted in December 2020 yielded similar findings, indicating that 82% of Trump supporters did not recognize then-President-elect Joe Biden as the legitimate election winner. The PRRI survey took place in September 2021, approximately a year before the House Jan 6. committee released its report. It also occurred two years before Trump and others were charged with efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Importantly, Trump’s assertion does not seem to be supported by any publicly accessible surveys or polling data. Throughout his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump has made numerous claims that have been proven false. Furthermore, the Capitol attack came after months of Trump repeatedly claiming that Biden’s victory could only be attributed to extensive fraud, and he urged his supporters to contest the outcome. Various conspiracy theories circulated to support these claims, but none of them withstand close examination.