5 - “A Rigged Election”

Summary

The incumbent president consistently and systematically sowed doubts about the integrity of the American electoral process throughout the 2020 presidential campaign. Trump’s campaign tactic had effects on voters. In this chapter, we show that public confidence in the integrity of the election is much lower for Republicans and for people paying attention to conservative news compared to Democrats and consumers of left-leaning news. Further, a propensity to believe in conspiracy theories fuels doubts about the security of the election. In addition, we show that a number of psychological predispositions consistently influence people’s assessments of Biden’s and Trump’s ability to safeguard the election, including people’s level of racial resentment and level of hostile sexism. Finally, people’s confidence in the security of the election is associated with positive changes in overall evaluations of Biden and negative changes in overall evaluations of Trump from September to October.