Fear among some swing-state voters that Trump would refuse to leave office could help Biden, report says

Anxiety appears to building among some voters over Trump's often charged, authoritarian rhetoric and incidents such as the January 6, 2021 riot.

• Political researchers say some voters are worried Trump would not leave the White House if reelected.
• The thought is pushing some voters toward President Joe Biden, Bloomberg reported.
• That's despite concerns over Biden's age, inflation, and continued US support for Israel.

President Joe Biden has consistently claimed that Donald Trump is "determined to destroy American democracy," and it appears that such a fear is slowly spreading among some voters in crucial swing states.

They are worried that the former president would refuse to leave office at the end of a second term if he were reelected to the White House in November, Bloomberg reported, citing political researchers.

Anxiety appears to be building over the former president's often charged, authoritarian rhetoric and incidents such as the January 6, 2021 riot, when Trump supporters — with his encouragement — stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to keep him in office following his defeat in the 2020 election.

Russell Wheeler, a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies program, told Business Insider that it seemed unlikely Trump would be able to get a repeal of the 22nd Amendment if he's in office — which would require either a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate or legislatures of two-thirds of the states to call for a convention.

He said that the "greater worry" was Trump "declaring a national emergency and refusing to allow the transition," particularly if the Democrats were to win the 2028 presidential election.

Trump has toyed with the idea of a three-term presidency

In a quip on Fox News in December 2023, Trump said he wouldn't be a dictator "except for day one" of his presidency.

"I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill," Trump said, before characteristcally later claiming in an interview with Time that the comment "was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically."

The former president has also continually made inflammatory comments over extending his presidency past two terms, a move prohibited by the 22nd Amendment stipulating that "no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."

In 2020, Trump told a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin: "We are going to win four more years. And then after that, we'll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years."

Despite seemingly dialing back such aspirations last month, when he told Time he intended to serve just the four years, Trump again hinted that he might take a different approach at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting last week: "You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?"

Concerns over the possibility that he could violate the 22nd Amendment appear to be very real, leading some toward the idea of voting for Biden despite of significant apprehension about his age, rampant inflation, and the US's continued support for Israel in the Gaza conflict, the Bloomberg report said.

Sarah Longwell, a Republican political strategist and CEO of the communications firm Longwell Partners, told the outlet that her company had come across such worries in focus groups.

In a video shared by Longwell, Bloomberg said a moderator asked a group of undecided swing-state voters: "Does anybody think he may not abide by the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution and leave office after the 2028 election? Anyone worried about that?"

Seven of the eight participants are said to have raised a hand, per the report.

Seiji Carpenter, a vice president at David Binder Research with 10 years of experience running Democrat focus groups, also told Bloomberg that his firm had seen the issue cropping up: "We were talking to Latino men and Asian American-Pacific Islander women in battleground states, and they went straight to the issue of, what if Trump won't give up power?"

"What we've seen so far indicates a real concern there," he added.

Despite such concerns, a swing-state poll last week from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Siena College showed that Trump led Biden in five of six states polled from April 28 to May 9, 2024.

It's not the first time the 22nd Amendment has been an issue in this election cycle.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis previously used the amendment to attack Trump, saying that it takes "two terms as president to be able to finish this job."

"And I don't think he could fix it in one single four-year term," he added.