What do Americans expect to happen in the 2024 election and its aftermath? This report examines who Americans expect will win the 2024 presidential election and if/when the losing candidate will/should concede.
Most Americans perceive a tight race, but one where their party’s candidate will win.
- The median Democrat believes Harris has a 65% chance of winning and Trump a 46% chance. Republicans are slightly more confident in their own candidate, giving Trump a 70% chance and Harris 40%.
- Confidence increases with affective polarization. Americans who dislike the opposing party/like their own party the most are about 20% more confident their party’s candidate will win the election than those with equal in- vs. out-party evaluations.
Partisans are split on their confidence in the candidates conceding the election.
- Democrats are, on average, very confident that Harris will concede if she loses, but not confident at all that Trump will do the same.
- Republicans have much more equal evaluations of each candidate: around 10-13% are either very confident either candidate will concede or have no confidence at all.
- Independents are in between Democrats and Republicans: they are more likely to believe Harris will concede than Trump, but not to the same extent that Democrats are.
Americans believe the losing candidate should concede, but don’t agree on when
- Only 6% of Democrats, 10% of Republicans, and 9% of Independents believe their candidate should never concede.
- A plurality of respondents believe concession should occur after all ballots have been counted, which can take several weeks.
- The next largest group across all partisans believes concession should occur only after Congress certifies a winner, which occurs in January.
About the Path to 2024 Report Series
PRL’s Path to 2024 report series is a new monthly chronicle covering partisan attitudes of Americans in the lead-up to the November 2024 presidential election. Each month, we focus on a different salient issue affecting voters and analyze public attitudes from our weekly public opinion poll. We will take on topics ranging from attitudes toward policy issues, such as immigration, to the health of our democracy. Backed by hard data, we hope to inform and dispel myths about what everyday Americans really believe. The reports are produced and written in clear language by PRL political scientists.