Somewhere near the top of that list is the concern that voters will elect Donald Trump’s preferred candidates to the office of secretary of state, a job that in many states plays a critical role in safeguarding the right to vote, while also ensuring the smooth operation and fairness of the electoral system.

To put it plainly, the widespread worry on the left is that Trump’s loyalists will guarantee his re-election in 2024 if they take power in 2022. It’s not something either Trump or these candidates labor especially hard to rebut…

In one indication of just how much traction Trump’s claims still hold over the G.O.P. base, 72 percent of voters who picked Trump in 2020 said the election had been stolen from him. That’s about a third of all voters.

And when the survey is broken down between those who said that Biden won fairly and those who espoused the false view that the election was stolen from Trump, a remarkable symmetry emerges: Supermajorities on both sides express concern that “elected officials will attempt to overturn the will of the people,” for instance, but of course each group is worried about the other team subverting the true results — and each group differs on what those are.