We asked people about the accuracy of the 2022 midterms before and after the election. On average, Democrats always agreed that the election would/will reflect the preferences of those who voted, while Republicans moved from agreeing with this statement to being uncertain on average. Independent attitudes were mostly static over the period at a level between agreement and uncertainty. This is consistent with a winner effect, where Democratic and Republican views moved in alignment with results of election day. As we will show in the coming weeks, independents represent a large pool of voters who lack trust in the system. You can always view the…

We asked approximately 6,000 Americans if they thought voter fraud occurred in the 2022 midterms. Despite a consistent lack of evidence, large numbers of Americans think the midterms were marred by fraud: 56% of Republicans, 33% of pure Independents and 8% of Democrats.  In a followup question 42% of Republicans thought that fraud changed the results of the 2022 midterms, while 24% of pure Independents and 4% of Democrats held this view. These results suggest that mistrust in elections is not just a partisan issue, with nearly a quarter of independents questioning the legitimacy of election outcomes. A sizable portion of Americans remain unconvinced…

Our survey data show that citizens overestimate support among the opposing party for democratic norm violations by up to 48.7 percentage points. We recently added questions to capture differences between actual support for political violence and perceived support for political violence.   Both parties have an extremely poor understanding of the extent to which the other side supports violence. Democrats overestimate Republican support for political violence by 45.5 percentage points (46.2% versus .7%). Similarly, Republicans overestimate Democratic support by 41.3 percentage points (43.1% versus 1.8%).  More striking than the difference between perceptions and truth is that truth is within the margin of error of 0, while perceptions are close to a…

Harnessing our massive set of survey interviews and MRP (Mulitilevel Regression and Post-Stratification), we generated state-level estimates of affective polarization. Though affective polarization remains high across the nation, it does vary by approximately 6 percentage points between states. Those states with the highest levels of affective polarization are those states with the most competitive elections.   You can always view the results of the America’s Political Pulse tracking poll to see major findings, explore over-time trends, or download top-line results.

The common theory is that partisan animosity surges before elections and then reduces after an election has passed. Our data, however, show that while there are fluctuations between weeks, the differences we observe are very small and are generally statistically indistinguishable. This could be because all of our data are still relatively close to the 2022 midterms, because of the national importance of the Georgia runoff, because of the movement toward permanent election campaigns, or because of something else entirely. Stay tuned as we explore this more closely. Feelings toward the two parties clarifies the overall lack of movement on affective…

Only 34.8% of Republicans agree that the 2022 midterms produced accurate results, while 81.7% of Democrats agree that the 2022 midterms produced accurate results.  Members of both parties have wrong perceptions of how accurate the other side saw 2022 midterm election results. Democrats overestimated the percentage of Republicans who thought the outcome was accurate by 10.8% and Republicans underestimated the percentage of Democrats who thought the outcome was accurate by 15.1%. You can always view the results of the America’s Political Pulse tracking poll to see major findings, explore over-time trends, or download top-line results.

MAGA Republicans are substantially more likely that non-MAGA Republicans to support democratic norms violations across the board. When it comes to support for political violence, we see that MAGA Republicans are more willing than non-MAGA Republicans to support lower levels of violence, but that support erodes as we get to extreme forms of political violence. Support for Political Violence by MAGA Identification (among Republicans) MAGA supporters are more likely than non-MAGA Republicans to say that voting is “very important.” Support for voting among all Republicans remains high. You can always view the results of the America’s Political Pulse tracking poll…