And theres a lot of people who are at different degrees of acceptance in between.
In that group, political scientists say there are also people who give the equivalent of the party line answer to survey takers, regardless of their real beliefs.
The evidence is strong that a number of people out there, even if they know the truth, will give a cheerleading answer, said Seth Hill, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. Part of the presidents base appears eager to stick it to the establishment, he said. If those voters interpret surveys about the elections legitimacy as part of that establishment, he said, its quite possible they will use this as another vehicle to express that sentiment.
For other voters, what they sincerely believe and what they want to be true may well be the same thing. And politics can be inseparable from that reasoning.
Research has shown that supporters of the winning candidate in an election consistently have more faith that the election was fair than supporters of the losing candidate do. This pattern is true of both Democrats and Republicans. And when the parties fortunes flip in subsequent elections, peoples answers flip, too.
Even if the magnitudes are bigger now, this tendency to respond in this way has just been with American politics since weve been asking about it, said Michael Sances, a professor at Temple University.
A series of surveys by Morning Consult even suggests that Mr. Bidens win in the election caused Democrats to revise their beliefs about the fairness of past elections. Respondents were asked before the November election if they believed presidential contests going back to 1992 were free and fair. In most of these years, about 65 percent to 70 percent of all registered voters said yes.
But when people were asked these questions again after this years election, Democratic faith in the 2016 election jumped 22 percentage points. It jumped 11 points for the 2000 election.read more
Most Republicans Say They Doubt the Election. How Many Really Mean It?
