Half of Americans see Donald Trump as a fascist: POLL

Half the country sees the former president donald trump as a fascist, which amplifies concerns raised in recent days by Vice President Kamala Harris and former members of Trump’s own administration. Far fewer in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll make the same charge against Harris.

Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often deviates from the truth, again saying the same about Harris. But Harris draws more criticism than Trump for pandering to votes by promoting policies she has no intention of pursuing, underscoring the challenges for both candidates as fury flies in their increasingly heated presidential race.

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

Harris said Wednesday that Trump is a fascista week after agreeing with an interviewer that his campaign is “about fascism.” A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former Trump chief of staff and a former defense secretary in his administration have also recently been cited for describing Trump as a fascist, and White House press secretary Karine Jean- Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden believes it too. Trump, for his part, has repeatedly called Harris a fascist, as well as a Marxist and communist.

See PDF for full results.

The results for this question include 44% saying only Trump is a fascist, 18% saying only Harris is a fascist, and 5% saying both are. Only 32% say that neither of them is a fascist in this survey, conducted for ABC by Langer Research Associates with field work Ipsos.

It is common for people to think very negatively about candidates or political figures they oppose, especially in the heat of a presidential campaign. This finding, however, marks the divisions – and the high stakes – of this particular race.

Perceptions of fascism are tied to partisanship: 87% of Democrats call Trump a fascist, compared to 46% of independents and 12% of Republicans. Harris, for her part, is seen as 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 view Trump as a fascist. Far fewer Trump supporters, 42%, apply the fascist label to Harris. Among registered voters who think Trump is a fascist, 8% support him anyway.

Interviews for this survey were completed Tuesday, before the New York Times. published an interview in which John Kelly, retired general and former secretary of homeland security and Trump’s chief of staff, He said Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of a fascist, for sure.”

Veracity

Trump also takes disproportionate criticism in the truth-telling department. Sixty-five percent of registered voters say they often say 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 receives more criticism on another front. Registered voters, by a 15-point margin, 57%-42%, say she is primarily making proposals “that are just intended to get people to vote for her,” not that she intends to carry them out. A little more than half say the same about Trump, but it’s a closer margin, 52%-47%.

The two candidates are closer in another way: whether they are mainly trying to explain what they would do as president or mainly trying to avoid explaining this. It’s 47%-52% (explain vs. avoid) for Harris and 48%-50% for Trump, a score that’s less than enthusiastic in either case.

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

As with views on fascism, attitudes about candidates telling the truth, pandering, and avoiding explanations are strongly tied to partisanship and ideology. For example, 95% of Democrats and 93% of liberals think that Trump often says things that are not true; 85% of Republicans and 83% of conservatives say the same about Harris.

Still, Trump receives more criticism for telling the truth from his base than Harris does from hers. 32 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of conservatives say he often doesn’t tell the truth, as do, as noted, 30 percent of his own supporters. In Harris’ case, far fewer Democrats (10%), liberals (12%), or Harris supporters (again 10%) say she often doesn’t tell the truth.

Crisis?

Trump’s disproportionate views as a fascist and prevaricator do not add up to a much greater sense of crisis if he is elected. Instead, it is high for both candidates: Among registered voters who do not support Trump, 68% say his election would be a crisis for the country. Among those who do not support Harris, almost the same number, 64%, say it would be a crisis if she won.

The share of non-partisans who say it would be a crisis if Harris were elected is essentially unchanged from late August, although up 9 percentage points from when asked about Biden in September 2020 (55%). Since then, the situation has been largely stable for Trump.

Concerns about the crisis are associated with perceptions of fascism. Among non-Harris supporters who call her a fascist, 84% say it would be a crisis for the country if she were elected. Among those who do not see it as fascist, fewer, although still 51%, think it would be a crisis.

The gap is even more surprising for Trump. Among those who do not support him, 79% of those who think he is a fascist say his election would be a crisis. That figure drops to 22% of those who do not see him as a fascist.

Views on telling the truth are also related to concerns about the crisis. Among nonpartisans who think Harris or Trump “very” often say things that aren’t true, about eight in 10 see their respective victories as a crisis. Again, this falls sharply among those who think candidates are less likely to tell the truth.

It is a somewhat weaker relationship in terms of pimping. Seventy-three percent of non-partisans who view Trump as pandering think it would be a crisis if he were elected; It’s 68% for Harris.

Methodology

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

The poll was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associateswith sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details about the ABC News survey methodology here.