A recent poll from the University of Virginia (UVA) Center for Politics and the Project Home Fire found that the majority of former President Donald Trump’s voters want to secede from the blue states.
Fifty-two percent of Trump voters agreed with the statement that, “The situation in America is such that I would favor [Blue/Red] states seceding from the union to form their own separate country.” There were 25 percent who strongly agreed with the statement.
When the survey asked voters who supported then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020, 41 percent agreed with the same statement, and 18 percent strongly agreed with the statement.
“The divide between Trump and Biden voters is deep, wide, and dangerous. The scope is unprecedented, and it will not be easily fixed,” UVA Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato said.
The majority of both sets of voters agreed that someone voting for a candidate from the opposing party is disloyal to the people they care about: 54 percent for Trump voters and 52 percent for Biden voters.
The poll also revealed that over 40 percent of voters in both parties favor abolishing the checks and balances built into the federal government and giving the president greater control: 44 percent for Trump voters and 46 percent for Biden voters.
However, over 75 percent of both parties also agreed with the statement that Americans who support the opposite party present a “clear and present danger to the American way of life.”
“In order to figure out ways to bridge these divides, we need to understand not just the divides themselves, but also understand the ways in which we can, together, move forward to reach common ground. This project helps us do both,” Larry Schack of Project Home Fire said.
The poll was taken from July 22 to August 4 with the help of InnovateMR — an industry-leading marketing research data collection firm — to collect data from a series of questions.
There were 2,002 2020 voters who were asked questions. They were divided equally between 1,001 Trump voters from 2020 and 1,001 Biden voters from 2020. There is a margin of error from this survey of +/- 2.2 percent.
Follow Jacob Bliss on Twitter @jacobmbliss.