Expressive Responding and Belief in 2020 Election Fraud

Do surveys measure sincere belief in Donald Trump’s “big lie” that fraud decided the 2020 election? We apply a comprehensive approach to detecting expressive responding: three honesty encouragements, a list experiment, two opportunities to express related sentiments, and two opportunities to bet on...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political behavior 2024-06, Vol.46 (2), p.1349-1374
Main Authors: Graham, Matthew H., Yair, Omer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Election results
Original Research
Partisanship
Political behavior
Political parties
Political Science
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Polls & surveys
Presidential elections
Respondents
Sociology
Voter fraud
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Summary:Do surveys measure sincere belief in Donald Trump’s “big lie” that fraud decided the 2020 election? We apply a comprehensive approach to detecting expressive responding: three honesty encouragements, a list experiment, two opportunities to express related sentiments, and two opportunities to bet on related predictions about the future. We find that nearly all respondents who endorse the big lie appear to genuinely believe it. These “believers” are evenly split between those who confidently accept the big lie and those who find it plausible but are not deeply convinced. Similarly, those who predicted that evidence of fraud would enable Trump to retain power in January 2021 or be reinstated in August 2021 were overwhelmingly sincere. Our findings indicate that Trump’s big lie is unique in terms of the size and veracity of belief differences between Democrats and Republicans. We discuss implications for democratic stability.
ISSN:0190-9320
1573-6687
DOI:10.1007/s11109-023-09875-w