WASHINGTON _ Warnings that the election is "rigged" against him have frequently punctuated Donald Trump's speeches in the closing weeks of the campaign, and his supporters have clearly absorbed that message.
A majority of Trump's supporters, 56 percent, say they have little or no confidence that the election "will be open and fair," according to a new poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, while 43 percent said they had at least a "fair amount" of confidence in the election's fairness.
The feeling was even more widespread among those who described themselves as strong supporters of Trump. By almost 2-to-1, those strong supporters said they did not have confidence the election would be fair.
By contrast, the vast majority of Hillary Clinton's supporters, 88 percent, said they did have confidence the election would be fair.
Trump's complaints about the system being biased against him and his refusal to commit that he would accept the election outcome have taken a toll on how voters see him. Less than half of voters, 43 percent, said that Trump has even "a fair amount" of respect for the country's democratic institutions and traditions. Even among Trump's supporters, only 41 percent said he had a "great deal" of respect for those traditions.
The poll also found that Trump supporters and Clinton supporters had very different views of one of those institutions _ the news media, which Trump has repeatedly denounced as "corrupt."
Among Clinton's supporters, 72 percent said that having "news organizations free to criticize political leaders" was very important to maintaining a strong democracy. Among Trump supporters, 49 percent took that view.
Overall, the Pew survey found Clinton leading Trump 46 percent to 40 percent among registered voters, with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson receiving 6 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein getting 3 percent. That's roughly on par with the current polling averages.
Respondents to the poll gave Clinton better marks than Trump on a list of characteristics generally considered important in a president, including being a good role model, being well qualified and not being reckless.
Trump's share of the vote outstripped the number who consider him well qualified or a good role model. That's in part because many of his voters see their ballot more as a vote against Clinton than as one for Trump.
Just 45 percent of Trump backers say their vote is primarily for him; 57 percent of Clinton's voters say their ballot is primarily for her, rather than against him.
The Pew poll was conducted Oct. 20-25 among 2,583 American adults, including 2,120 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points in either direction for the registered voter sample.
