Judy Woodruff:
A new national poll paints a troubling picture of an American electorate worried about the future of democracy, sharply divided on issues of personal freedom, and dissatisfied with President Biden’s leadership.
Here to walk us through the result is Ann Selzer. She is the president of Selzer & Company, which wrote the poll, in collaboration with Grinnell College.
Ann Selzer, welcome back to the “NewsHour.” It’s very good to see you.
A number of striking things here to ask you about, starting with this question about people’s trust in our democracy. You have — what we find in these results is the majority of Americans saying that they believe democracy is facing a major threat. And we see that number driven by Republicans; 71 percent of them think that’s true, compared to 35 percent of Democrats.
What do you see is driving this?
J. Ann Selzer, Selzer & Company, Inc.: Well, the reason we wanted to go after this was a focus by Grinnell College on looking at the health of American democracy.
So we went at it from sideways issues, but this is hitting it head on. Do you perceive that American democracy is under major threat, minor threat or really no threat at all?
And there have been sobering conversations on both sides of the aisle about what the threat currently is. And I think the findings of this poll reveals that, at the heart, the bigger perceived threat is Republicans listening to the talk about the election being stolen, about the electoral system being broken.
And that has really set in, in a way that makes them believe that democracy is a major threat. Democrats are not nearly as roiled up about a sense of doom for the democracy.
