Recent polls in the U.S. may show that support for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign is strong, but our neighbors to the north are not thrilled about another potential MAGA presidency.
Poll results released Monday by the Angus Reid Institute found that two-thirds of Canadians are concerned that American democracy will not be able to survive another four years with Trump as president.
“Trump himself has publicly mused about his plans for ‘retribution’ if he wins again, after being impeached twice in his first four years and continuing to claim that the last election was ‘rigged’ against him,” said the institute.
Here in the U.S., people have already started to doubt the health of American democracy. Last month, Audacy reported that half of those included in an AP-NORC poll said they don’t believe democracy is working well in the country.
In addition to concerns that the U.S. could become an authoritarian state under Trump, Canadians were three times as likely to say that a win for President Joe Biden would be better for their economy. Overall, they felt another Biden term would be better for Canada.
“As observers cast their gaze toward November and the electoral contest to come, Canadians join many Americans in worrying about election security,” said Angus Reid. “Just 12% of Canadians say they have full confidence that elections will be safe and secure, while twice as many (23%) say they have no confidence at all. Another two-in-five have doubts (38%), with 27% also saying they’re more confident than not.”
While around half of the poll respondents (49%) said they were concerned about both Republican and Democrat majority states, 34% said they were concerned primarily about red states, compared to 17% who were concerned about blue states. Another key finding revealed that 22% of Canadians believe the “American Age” of geopolitical dominance is already over.
Despite concerns about how another Trump term might negatively impact the U.S., the former president handily won the recent Iowa Caucus. A mountain of legal issues that he faces – including efforts to remove him from primary ballots – only seem to be making him more popular.
For example, poll results released this week by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Trump had a solid lead (45% to 37%) over Biden in Georgia in a hypothetical 2024 matchup. Georgia is one of the states where Trump was indicted last year.