Half the country sees Donald Trump as a fascist in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, amplifying concerns recently raised by Kamala Harris and past Trump administration members.
Half the country sees former President Donald Trump as a fascist, amplifying concerns raised in recent days by Vice President Kamala Harris and past members of Trump’s own administration. Far fewer in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll level the same charge against Harris.
Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often departs from the truth, again more than say so about Harris. But Harris gets more criticism than Trump for pandering for votes by promoting policies she doesn’t intend to carry out — underscoring challenges for both candidates as the fur flies in their increasingly heated presidential race.
Responding to one of the more incendiary salvos, 49% of registered voters in the national survey say Trump is a fascist, defined as “a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents.” Fewer than half as many, 22%, see Harris as a fascist by this definition.
Harris on Wednesday said Trump is a fascist, a week after agreeing with an interviewer that his campaign is “about fascism.” A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former chief of staff to Trump and a former defense secretary in his administration have been quoted recently also as describing Trump as a fascist, and the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden thinks so, too. Trump, for his part, repeatedly has called Harris a fascist, as well as a Marxist and a communist.
See PDF for full results.
Results to 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. Just 32% say neither is a fascist in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos.
It’s common for people to think highly negatively of candidates or political figures they oppose, especially in the heat of a presidential campaign. This finding, regardless, marks the divisions — and the high stakes — of this particular contest.
Perceptions of fascism are tied to partisanship: 87% of Democrats call Trump a fascist, compared with 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.
