Just 14 percent of voters said the loser should challenge the election results, as Donald Trump has suggested he might do. | AP Photo Poll: 70 percent of voters want loser to accept election results

An overwhelming majority of voters — 68 percent — think the loser of the 2016 presidential election should accept the results of the race, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted after the final presidential debate.

Just 14 percent of voters said they thought the loser should challenge the results, as Donald Trump continues to decline to say whether he’ll accept the Election Day outcome.


But the Republican nominee — who on Thursday said he would accept the vote totals only “if I win” — does not seem to be speaking to any major constituency within his party. Fifty-three percent of self-identified tea party supporters say the loser should accept the results, and a nearly identical amount — 56 percent — of self-identified conservatives think the same. Just 24 percent of Trump supporters want him to challenge a potential victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Still, underpinning Trump’s argument — that the nation’s voting systems have been corrupted — is a relatively commonly held belief: Roughly half the electorate — 46 percent — say it’s very or somewhat likely that there will be widespread voter fraud. Forty-seven percent believe that fraud will come in the form of intimidation at the ballot box, 41 percent say it will be voters casting a ballot in the wrong location and 37 percent believe people will vote on behalf of someone dead.

"With Nov. 8 drawing near and the 'rigged election' rhetoric reaching a fever pitch, it will be important to watch Donald Trump's supporters react when the final results roll in," said Kyle Dropp, co-founder and chief research officer at Morning Consult. "While a clear majority of voters say the losing candidate should concede, a quarter of Trump supporters have yet to make up their mind on the matter and another quarter believe the final results should be contested no matter what."

Trump, however, has failed to shift the dynamics of the race in his favor. At this point, according to the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll — and most other surveys — Clinton is clearly winning the election. After the third debate, held at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Clinton is beating Trump by 6 points in both a head-to-head matchup and a four-way race.

Clinton is up in the two-way race, 46 percent to 40 percent, with 15 percent still undecided. And in the four-way race, Clinton is up 42 percent to Trump’s 36 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson coming in at 9 percent and the Green Party’s Stein garnering 4 percent.

While House and Senate Republicans view a decisive Clinton victory as hurting their prospects for maintaining control, there's some evidence voters will give GOP down-ballot candidates a look if its seems certain that the former secretary of state is coasting to victory. A third of voters say they would be more likely to vote for a Republican for the House or Senate if Clinton was definitely going to win.

Clinton was, as in previous surveys, viewed as the winner of Wednesday night’s debate, with 43 percent of viewers saying she bested Trump, while 26 percent say Trump won.

Another winner out of Wednesday night’s debate: Fox News’ Chris Wallace. Fifty percent of viewers thought Wallace was a fair and impartial moderator, higher than Anderson Cooper, Martha Raddatz and Lester Holt. And 59 percent of those who watched thought Wallace was excellent or good. Forty percent of those who watched the final presidential debate said they came away from the contest with a more favorable impression of Wallace.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll surveyed 1,598 registered voters and 1,395 likely voters. The margin of error for both samples is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these four documents — Toplines: http://politi.co/2dTXeYX Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2eNY6Da Topical questions — Toplines: http://politi.co/2ep1Ye7 Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2ep1mFC