While most voters believe their health will not be at risk while casting ballots in November, attitudes about the election depend greatly on political affiliation and demographic factors, a recent report found.
The study, released Thursday by the Rand Corp., details expectations among voters about public safety, election integrity and the preparedness of local officials to run the 2020 presidential election amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Most voters — 55 percent — trust that their vote will be properly counted after months of President Trump and other administration officials casting doubts on voting by mail. F
Political affiliation significantly influenced responses. Among Republicans, 86 percent feel voting will be safe from health risks, while only 54 percent of Democrats agree. Republicans were also more concerned than Democrats that their votes won't be properly counted.
Race and age also affected how people responded. White and older respondents had significantly more trust that their votes would be counted than Black, Hispanic and younger respondents. As a previous survey found, many young voters are worried about the integrity of the election. Overall, older voters — despite being at higher risk of Covid-19 infection — had more positive perceptions of election safety, integrity and preparedness.
"This might reflect the fact that, in recent decades, older Americans have generally tended to have greater trust in government institutions than younger Americans," the report concluded.
The survey also found a correlation between those who question election safety or integrity and those less likely to vote. More than seven in 10 of those who voted in 2016 or 2018 believe in the election's integrity, while just four in 10 of those who did not vote in the last two elections have that same belief.
Despite these differences, there was widespread support "for sanitation and social distancing at poll locations but lower support for sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters or using online voting."
While the number of voters casting their ballots by mail has increased steadily over the past 30 years, a large jump is expected this year due in part to the pandemic and correlated health fears. Almost half of voters plan to vote remotely, up from about a third in the last election.
The report, though, said expanding no-excuse mail-in voting as well as targeting messages at the most skeptical groups might mitigate voter concerns.
Rand surveyed more than 2,000 respondents in late May and early June across the country and considers its findings to be a snapshot in time, when the pandemic had mostly affected the Northeast and Midwest. Because of the ever-changing dynamics of the virus, current attitudes on voting could vary, the company said.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.