By Pat McCrory
For the last several years, the common narrative has been that Republicans have lost faith in America’s elections. But recent polling should remind Americans of a different, and increasingly concerning, story. Confidence in election results is not divided neatly along party lines, with one side expressing high trust and the opposing one expressing low trust. Instead, opinions shift based on who wins the previous presidential campaign, and the numbers show it isn’t anything new. What’s different and alarming now is the sheer amount of political rhetoric that plays to these fears. This is a challenge to each of us to look upon the election process as citizens first, not as partisans.
According to a national Ipsos survey conducted immediately after Election Day in 2024, 75 percent of registered voters said that the election was legitimate and accurate—up sharply from 58 percent after the 2020 election. Among Republicans, confidence in election integrity skyrocketed from 26 percent in 2020 to 91 percent in 2024, a 65-point surge. Among Democrats, however, it fell from 88 percent to 63 percent. Nearly 40 percent of Democrats, whose candidate lost the 2024 race, said they did not believe the results were legitimate, and in fact were more likely the result of “illegal voting or election rigging.”
A more recent poll from the state of Georgia provides evidence that this shift has staying power. In the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution survey, more than one-third of Democratic primary voters said they’re either “not so confident” or “not at all confident” that Georgia’s 2026 primary will be conducted fairly and accurately — more than double the share from October 2024, when only 16 percent expressed such doubt.
To appreciate how this change shouldn’t be all that surprising, we need to be mindful of history. The Pew Research Center has been tracking confidence in election outcomes since 2004, and the findings have always been tied closely to party. In ’04, for example, 72 percent of President Bush’s voters said they were “very confident” that votes across the country were counted accurately — four times higher than Sen. Kerry’s voters, just 18 percent of which said the same thing. In 2008, however, only 29 percent of Sen. McCain’s voters said they were very confident in the count, and 56 percent of then-Sen. Obama’s did. When President Obama defeated Gov. Romney in 2012, twice as many Obama voters were very confident in the tally as Romney voters.
These numbers tell us something fundamental: Too many Americans view the legitimacy of our elections through a partisan lens. Trust in the process rises and falls depending on whether their side wins. That’s not sustainable in a constitutional republic.
Our elected leaders have a responsibility to resist exploiting these doubts. I understand from experience. In 2016, I lost a very close race for governor of North Carolina by just 10,000 votes (0.2 percentage points) out of 4.7 million votes cast. I challenged the results, pushed for transparency, and insisted that every legitimate ballot be counted.
But when the process concluded, I respected the outcome. That wasn’t easy, but it was essential. Because if candidates can’t accept results after all legal remedies have been exhausted, then our entire democratic system begins to unravel.
Here in North Carolina, we’ve made real progress: We have voter ID, paper ballots that can be audited, and voting machines that aren’t connected to the internet. These policies are simple and ought to be bipartisan, because they help ensure that every voter can have confidence that their ballot counts. But all the reforms in the world won’t matter if political leaders, including the most prominent ones, keep undermining the system with their words. This is why it’s so troubling that some of the loudest voices sowing doubt today come from those who claim to defend democracy.
Just last month, former President Barack Obama appeared in a television ad urging Californians to support Governor Gavin Newsom’s redistricting initiative, Proposition 50, saying: “California, the whole nation is counting on you. Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. With Prop 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks.”
Not long before then, in August, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote on Facebook: “Republicans are trying to rig the 2026 elections in their favor by stealing enough seats to control Congress regardless of how the people vote. With California’s Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom and California Democrats are fighting back to defend Democracy against Trump’s power grab.” Her post is available here.
This kind of rhetoric is no better than the claims made by those on my side of the aisle who questioned the 2020 results. Both parties have played this game, Republicans and Democrats alike. As five Republican secretaries of state who have worked to build trust in the election system noted, the game has been played for a while now, too, with prominent Democrats claiming that Gov. Bush stole the election and challenging the electoral results in 2000 and 2004, respectively. What’s new here is that former House speaker Pelosi and President Obama are no average Democrats. When national leaders of their stature tell voters that upcoming elections are “rigged” before a single vote is cast, they uniquely damage the very institution they claim to protect.
The standard we must all live by is clear: Fight hard, follow the law, count every vote, and when it’s over, accept the results. Because if we stop trusting our elections, we stop trusting each other. And when that happens, the stability of our republic cannot endure.
Pat McCrory served as the 74th governor of North Carolina and chairs the North Carolina chapter of RightCount.