{"title":"Partisanship, Social Desirability, and Belief in Election Fraud: Evidence from the 2022 US Midterm Elections","authors":"Masaki Hata, Ikuma Ogura","doi":"10.1177/14789299241270462","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump publicly asserted that the election was rigged due to voter fraud, and many voters also endorsed this conspiracy theory. This article examines American voters’ belief in election fraud during the 2022 midterm elections, with a particular focus on (1) the propensity of Democrats versus Republicans to believe in voter fraud and (2) the potential for voters to hide their endorsement of such conspiracy theory. For these purposes, we conducted a post-election online public opinion survey in which we asked respondents’ beliefs in voter fraud using both a direct question and a preregistered list experiment. Analysis of the survey data revealed that Republican respondents were far more likely than their Democratic counterparts to believe that election fraud influenced the election outcomes. We also found that the percentage of respondents believing in election fraud was significantly higher when estimated using the direct question method than when using the list experiment, which at least suggests that voters do not conceal their beliefs regarding election fraud out of social desirability concerns. We discuss the implications of this research for the broader literature on American political behavior and public opinion about conspiracy theories.","PeriodicalId":46813,"journal":{"name":"Political Studies Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Political Studies Review","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299241270462","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump publicly asserted that the election was rigged due to voter fraud, and many voters also endorsed this conspiracy theory. This article examines American voters’ belief in election fraud during the 2022 midterm elections, with a particular focus on (1) the propensity of Democrats versus Republicans to believe in voter fraud and (2) the potential for voters to hide their endorsement of such conspiracy theory. For these purposes, we conducted a post-election online public opinion survey in which we asked respondents’ beliefs in voter fraud using both a direct question and a preregistered list experiment. Analysis of the survey data revealed that Republican respondents were far more likely than their Democratic counterparts to believe that election fraud influenced the election outcomes. We also found that the percentage of respondents believing in election fraud was significantly higher when estimated using the direct question method than when using the list experiment, which at least suggests that voters do not conceal their beliefs regarding election fraud out of social desirability concerns. We discuss the implications of this research for the broader literature on American political behavior and public opinion about conspiracy theories.
期刊介绍:
Political Studies Review provides unrivalled review coverage of new books and literature on political science and international relations and does so in a timely and comprehensive way. In addition to providing a comprehensive range of reviews of books in politics, PSR is a forum for a range of approaches to reviews and debate in the discipline. PSR both commissions original review essays and strongly encourages submission of review articles, review symposia, longer reviews of books and debates relating to theories and methods in the study of politics. The editors are particularly keen to develop new and exciting approaches to reviewing the discipline and would be happy to consider a range of ideas and suggestions.