By Eugene Gato Nsengamungu ‘23 and Logan Dancey, Wesleyan University
Introduction
Free and fair elections and respect for the legitimacy of the opposition are two cornerstones of well-functioning democracies. Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud in 2020 threatened to erode public confidence in both U.S. elections and the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency. A report from the MIT Election Data + Science Lab shows Republicans were far less confident that votes in the U.S. were counted as intended in 2020 than Democrats. Although partisan differences in the perceived accuracy of the vote count existed in 2012 and 2016, these differences were magnified in 2020. They also appeared to carry forward into the lead up to the 2022 elections, with Pew finding greater partisan differences in perceptions of how the 2022 midterms would be run compared to the 2018 midterms. Trump’s rhetoric of a “stolen election” resonated with many Republican voters and appeared to foster more polarization over the security of American elections.
In this post, we examine partisan differences in confidence in the way the 2022 elections were conducted. To do so, we rely on data from a Wesleyan SurveyLab survey of 2,000 respondents fielded through YouGov following the 2022 midterms. The 2022 elections featured high-profile candidates who echoed former President Trump’s questioning of the 2020 election results and challenged the outcome of their own elections. In the end, however, election fraud claims were more muted following the 2022 election than in 2020 and both parties had reasons to be either pleased or disappointed with the election results at the federal level as Republicans took control of the U.S. House and Democrats maintained control of the U.S. Senate. This allows us to gauge the extent to which the polarization over confidence in election results endured following a more “normal” election cycle.
Analysis and Results
We start with an examination of levels of voter confidence in elections at the state level. The survey asked respondents, “How confident are you that the 2022 election was conducted fairly in your state?” and given four options (Very confident, Somewhat confident, Not very confident, and Not at all confident). We explore differences between Democrats, Republicans, and independents, with respondents who initially identify as independent but who say they “lean” towards one party or the other coded as partisans. Figure 1 shows the levels of confidence across the different partisan groups. All analyses include survey weights provided by YouGov.
Figure 1
While most respondents are either very or somewhat confident in how elections were conducted in their states, Democrats are more confident than Republicans and independents. In particular, Democrats are far more likely than both independents and Republicans to say they are “very confident.” Of those who identified as Democrats, 66% were very confident, and 28% were somewhat confident. By comparison, only 30% of respondents who self-identify as Republicans reported that they were very confident and 42% were somewhat confident. Independents’ views more closely resembled Republicans than Democrats, with 28% of self-identified independents very confident and 41% somewhat confident in the fairness of the 2022 elections in their state.1
The survey also asked respondents how confident they were that the 2022 election was conducted fairly in all states, with the same four response options. Figure 2 shows that the Democrats surveyed are more confident in how the 2022 elections were conducted in all states than their Republican counterparts. The vast majority (89%) of Democrats are confident in the fairness of how the 2022 elections were conducted in all states, with 55% very confident and 34% somewhat confident. On the other hand, 57% of Republicans are not confident in the fairness of how the 2022 elections were conducted in all states, with 32% not very confident and 25% not at all confident). The findings here are consistent with results from the MIT Election Lab and Pew, which show that Americans tend to be more confident in how elections are run in their state or locale compared to the nation as a whole.2
Figure 2
Conclusion
In the aftermath of an election that resulted in a mix of good and bad news for both parties, we observe continued partisan differences in expressed confidence about how the election was conducted. Consistent with previous years, people generally had greater levels of confidence in how elections were conducted in their state compared to the country as a whole. The majority of Democrats, Republicans, and independents were either very confident or somewhat confident in how elections were conducted in their state, although Democrats were far more likely to report being very confident than Republicans or independents. When asked about confidence in the way elections were conducted in all states, a majority of Republicans said they were not very confident or not at all confident. Meanwhile, only 11% of Democrats reported that they were not very confident or not at all confident. The results suggest that a split decision from the electorate in the 2022 midterms ultimately did not result in similar levels of confidence in the election process across parties.
Footnotes
1In an ordered logistic regression controlling for race, educational attainment, and gender, we observe a statistically significant relationship between partisanship and confidence in whether the election was conducted fairly in the respondent’s state.
2 Again, we see a statistically significant relationship between partisanship and confidence in the 2022 elections in a regression model controlling for race, gender, and educational attainment.
