53% of Republicans say Trump is ‘true US president’

A survey carried out by Reuters/Ipsos has shown that a large number of Republicans believe Donald Trump won the November 2020 presidential election despite losing to President Joe Biden.

According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, the survey found out that 53 percent of Republicans believe that Trump is the “true president” and that he lost the election to Biden as a result of illegal voting.

The recent survey shows that despite internal wrangling, the former US president still enjoys the support of the majority of  Republicans.

The poll, which was conducted from May 17 to 19, is based on responses from 2,007 Americans, including 909 Democrats, 754 Republicans and 197 independents.

The poll showed that 30 percent of Americans, including 10 Democrats, believe the election was “stolen” from Trump.

Also, 25 percent of Americans said the presidential election had been marred by illegal voting — a sentiment shared by 56 percent of the Republican respondents.

Despite losing reelection in November, Trump had insisted that he won by a wide margin and claimed that the exercise was characterised by fraud.

The former US president had filed a series of lawsuits to challenge the outcome of the election but his claims were thrown out.

However, the survey found that 55 percent of Americans believe the election was entirely “legitimate and accurate”.

According to the poll, 32 percent of Americans agree with the statement that the US Capitol riot on January 6 “was led by violent left-wing protestors trying to make Trump look bad”.

But about 29 percent of Republicans believe the former US president should share some of the blame for his supporters’ riot.

Reacting to the result of the poll, Trump pointed out that he also believes that he is still the rightful president.

“A new Ipsos/Reuters poll ‘Beliefs Among Republicans’ shows 53% believe Donald Trump is the true President (I always knew America was smart!),” Trump said in a statement issued through his political action committee.

“2020 Election was tainted 56%. The Election was stolen (and Rigged!) 61%.”