Will at least 25% of voting Americans see the election result as illegitimate no matter what?

[ProgressiveModerate]

This cycle, the electorate is extremely polarized, and there's been a lot of efforts to try to cast doubt over the election. If Romney were to win in 2012, for instance, most Democrats on this forum would accept the loss and move on with their lives as normal with a slight disappointment for a few days. If Trump wins a second term, it seems like many Democrats on this forum would beyond dissapointed, but devastated. I think the reverse can be said for Republicans; Obama winning was dissapointing, but Joe Biden winning will turn our country into a socialists country with little personal freedoms, at least according to those I've heard who support Trump.

If Joe Biden were to win, my guess is that Trump would try to cast doubt on the election result, and a good chunk of his base, mostly the parts that aren't all that into electoral politics would genuinely believe him to be telling the truth. I think this will be the case regardless of whether Biden wins by a state or two, or with the 413 map or even more. I was watching a Prager U (right leaning) video on voter fraud, not that I necessarily agree with them, but just to see what the arguments were on voter suppression. One of their arguments was literally that every congressional in Orange County went, blue, or in other words the results were too good for Democrats (ironically, the congressional district they were using in the district they were talking about was CA-21, which is not in Orange County. If Biden wins in a landslide and flips some iconic state like TX, maybe Trump and his enablers will try to argue the results were too good for Biden to be true, and even though Trump is still kicked out of the office in January, there could be a good chunk of people who believe Joe Biden shouldn't be president and there could be some serious efforts by far right groups to try to assassinate him, or use violence in some other manner.

On the other hand, if Trump wins again, which seems unlikely at this point, Joe Biden supporters would be devastated and frankly scared. Especially if the election is close, and there is some questions around the result, we could see a result where certain blue states come close to succeeding. I think if Trump wins a second term though, this will be the least of our concerns.

Is there any realistic scenario where over 70% of the adult population accepts the election results?

[Ferguson97]

If you conduct a poll in December 2020, I imagine it could get as high as 30%.

If you conduct a poll in August 2021, I think it'll be a lot lower, maybe 10%.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

30% of Republicans thought Acorn stole the election for Obama in 2008. I imagine the deluded numbers will be a lot higher than ever if Trump loses since he’ll be pushing it himself

[Hammy]

I'll say it's closer to 60%. Whichever side loses will say it's stolen and illegitimate, and there's probably a good chunk (myself included) for which it is already so tainted by top down interference that it is no longer a legitimate free and fair election regardless of the outcome.