Polls find most Republicans say 2020 election was stolen and roughly one-quarter embrace QAnon conspiracies

Most Americans reject QAnon-linked conspiracy theories and believe that Donald Trump lost legitimately in 2020, a set of new polling finds. But a substantial minority within the Republican party endorses some of those theories, and most continue to baselessly question the outcome of last year's election.

About one-quarter of Republicans, 23%, agree with a set of conspiratorial beliefs linked to the QAnon movement, according to a PRRI report released Thursday. These believers said they mostly or completely agreed that "the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation," that "there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders," and, finally, that "because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country." Among the full American public, 14% mostly or completely agree with all those statements, with a broad majority saying they disagree. Beyond partisanship, belief in QAnon conspiracy theories is also strongly associated with consumption of far-right media, the report finds. Only a fraction of the public, about 3%, report that their most trusted TV news sources were right-wing networks like One America News and Newsmax. But nearly half of that group say they believed in "a storm coming soon," with 42% agreeing that "patriots may have to resort to violence" and 40% that "a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles" control US government, media and finance. The findings don't indicate whether consuming far-right media instills these beliefs in viewers, or whether believers in those theories tend to gravitate to such news sources.