Despite repeated assurances to the contrary from the Obama administration, and despite the lack of any supporting evidence, a majority of Democrats believe a conspiracy theory in which Russia tampered with the voting tallies in last month’s election to rig the outcome in favor of Donald Trump, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) meets with U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, September 5, 2016. Sputnik/Kremlin/Alexei Druzhinin/via REUTERS
According to the polling results, 17 percent of registered Democrats said it’s “definitely true” that “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected president, while another 35 percent said the conspiracy theory was “probably true.”
The Obama administration has consistently said that the November elections were “free and fair” and that no hacking of voting machines took place.
The polling results are just the latest indication that not all Democrats appear willing to accept an election in which a Clinton victory was considered all but a sure thing.
The Clinton campaign previously joined recount efforts kickstarted by Green Party nominee Jill Stein. Those recount efforts turned out to be pointless. (RELATED: Huma Sister Trying To Undermine A Legitimate Trump Victory)
It’s worth noting that the YouGov polling found that Democrats are not alone in believing comforting conspiracy theories.
Just under half of registered Republicans, 49 percent, believe that Clinton staffers used code words for pedophilia and human trafficking in emails released by WikiLeaks, also known as “Pizzagate.”
That conspiracy theory, popular among some fringe, right-wing groups, held that a child sex trafficking ring was being run out of a pizza restaurant named Comet Ping Pong, owned by the former boyfriend of liberal hatchet man David Brock. One believer in the conspiracy theory ultimately entered Comet Ping Pong with a rifle to “investigate” matters for himself, before realizing the conspiracy theory had no basis in reality. (RELATED: Man With A Rifle Enters D.C. Restaurant At The Heart Of A Conspiracy Theory)
Generally speaking, the YouGov poll found that whether or not a person believed in a particular conspiracy theory depended on which side of the political spectrum they fall. That is, Democratic voters are far more likely to believe a conspiracy theory that helped Hillary Clinton’s cause or made Republicans look bad, while Republican voters are more likely to lend credence to conspiracy theories that made Donald Trump look better or made Democrats look worse. (RELATED: Flashback: Clinton Said Not Accepting Election Results Was ‘Horrifying’)
