Trump Claims California Elections Are Rigged, Poll Finds 41% Fear Federal Meddling

A new poll found that 41% of California voters lacked confidence that this year’s elections would be free of federal meddling, even before President Trump’s latest baseless fraud claims.

“In the immediate days after last week’s primary election, the vast community of right-wing bloggers, X users, podcasters and YouTuber influencers trumpeted that California, the state they love to hate, was turning red”

CalMatters

The Los Angeles Times reported that the survey showed a sharp partisan divide, with 79% of Democrats expressing confidence in election officials while 55% of Republicans said they were not confident.

CalMatters

The same Los Angeles Times report said Trump claimed on his social media site that the race for Los Angeles mayor was a “Rigged Election,” after Democrat Nithya Raman overtook Republican Spencer Pratt for second place in the ongoing primary election vote count.

In the same period, the Los Angeles Times said Trump alleged in an interview with NBC News that California elections officials “were cheating,” and it noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson said the elections process in the L.A. mayoral race “stinks to high heaven.”

NBC News described a “perfect storm of conditions in California” that led to “unfounded voter fraud claims” from President Donald Trump and his allies, alarming election experts ahead of the fall’s midterms.

In the Los Angeles Times account, political scientist Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, said the president “wants to use those claims to make changes in the election process that could make it harder for people to vote.”

CNN

CalMatters quoted Meet the Press interviewer Kristen Welker pressing Trump with “Do you have evidence to support that?” after he accused California officials of “cheating.”

CalMatters also quoted Trump’s response, “All I have to do is look,” and it included Welker’s reply that “that’s not evidence. That’s how they count the votes in California,” during the same exchange.

The Los Angeles Times said the ongoing attacks by Trump and his supporters continue to erode confidence in the nation’s elections, especially among Republicans, “threatening a pillar of American democracy,” according to Eric Schickler.

“KUOW is Seattle’s NPR news station”

KUOW

It also reported that 74% of Californians want 2028 presidential contenders to prioritize defending democracy and ballot access, and that 48% had confidence there would be not meddling.

CalMatters said Trump’s accusations followed the June 2 primary’s vote-counting delays, and it quoted House Speaker Mike Johnson saying that “everybody knows instinctively something is wrong.”

CalMatters further reported that Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli posted on X that federal prosecutors were working with the FBI on “multiple election fraud investigations,” while providing no specifics, as the right-wing media ecosystem continued to amplify baseless claims.