'Didn’t play the same': Republicans see 'resurgent faith' in democratic institutions after Trump win

17 December 2024

During the 2024 U.S. presidential race, Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias often warned that if Vice President Kamala Harris won, Donald Trump would try to overturn the election results just as he did in 2020. And radio host Charlamagne tha God went a step further, predicting that the "corrupt" U.S. Supreme Court would respond to a Harris victory by handing the election to Trump.

But Trump narrowly won the election, picking up 312 electoral votes and defeating Harris by roughly 1.5 percent in the popular vote (according to the Cook Political Report). And Democrats, unlike Trump and his MAGA allies in 2020, didn't make any false voter fraud claims.

Harris gave a gracious concession speech, joining President Joe Biden, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and others in acknowledging Trump as the legitimate winner.

According to the New York Times' Charles Homan, a YouGov survey shows "stark differences in how Republican and Democratic voters have handled recent losses."

The survey, Homan reports, shows that Americans "are more confident in the country's election system than they have been at any time since the 2020 election."

But according to Brendan Nyhan, who teaches government at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, the survey results don't necessarily mean that GOP election denialism has gone away — only that Republicans are more likely to respond favorably when they win.

Brendan Nyhan, told the Times, "The increase is heartening…. But there's also bad news, which is we now have to wonder if Republicans will only trust the system if they win."

Nyhan, comparing responses to the 2024 and 2020 elections, pointed out that "it didn't play the same as it did in 2020."

Homan's reporting indicates that GOP election denialism could make a comeback in the future if Democrats enjoy some major victories and Republicans are disappointed — as election denialism has become very "ingrained" in the Republican psyche since 2020, and Trump's 2024 victory doesn't necessary mean it has gone away.

According to Homan, "The centrality of election denialism to the post-2020 Republican Party raised concerns that mistrust of the election system had become deeply ingrained on the right, enough so that it could outlast Mr. Trump's own presence in politics."

Democrats were disappointed by the 2024 election's outcome but aren't claiming the election was stolen from Harris. Homan observes, "Surveys taken since Donald Trump’s win show a resurgent faith among the president-elect’s supporters, and little Democratic appetite for conspiracy theories."

Homan reports, "Eighty-nine percent of all respondents recognize Mr. Trump’s victory in last month’s election as legitimate, according to the Bright Line Watch survey. Only 65 percent said the same of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory in 2020 in the group’s survey that November."

Homan notes that a Pew Research poll released in November "found similar results," with 84 percent of Democrats saying they believed the election was conducted "very" or "somewhat" well.

Read the full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

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