Credit: r. nial bradshaw/Flickr

Fourth of the Series “Attitudes, Concerns, and Policy Preferences of Trump Voters”

By Wayne A. Selcher, PhD* [Informe OPEU] [US Elections] [Eleições 2024]

A High-Stress Historic Moment

Notable characteristics of the American presidential election of November 2024 set it well apart from previous such elections, with several “firsts.” After President Joe Biden (age 81) was finally convinced by key Democratic leaders not to run for re-election as the oldest president ever to do so, he designated Vice-President Kamala Harris (age 59) for that role, with late timing that posed a campaign challenge. Of South Indian (Tamil) and Jamaican ethnic background, she is only the second woman to run for that office who was a nominee of one of the two major parties, after Hillary Clinton in 2016, and is the first woman of color in that role.

On the Republican ticket, Donald Trump, defeated in his attempt to be re-elected in 2020, is trying for a comeback as a populist while still refusing to concede his 2020 loss and pledging to respect the results in November, 2024 only if it is a “fair and legal and good election,” in his judgement. At 78, he is also now the oldest nominee ever to run for president on a major party slate, making his choice of J.D. Vance for vice-president all the more consequential, as a potential emergency successor. Also unusual, as of September 2024, he was the victim of two assassination attempts while running for president, plus an ongoing assassination plot from Iran, presumably as revenge for the 2020 killing of Iranian military commander Soleimani in Iraq during Trump’s presidency and to sow chaos in the US.

Trump Vance campaign 2024 logo with “Make America Great Again!” slogan (Source: Wikipedia/Public Domain)

But, as indicated by Gallup in September 2024, public opinion is not enthusiastic about either candidate: “Both candidates, however, have higher unfavorable than favorable ratings. Trump’s unfavorable rating is seven percentage points higher than his favorable score, and Harris’ is 10 points higher… Despite the overall negative tilt in favorability, both candidates enjoy nearly unanimous positive ratings from their own party faithful and negligible positivity from the opposing party.” This presidential election is the third in a row in which neither candidate has a favorability rating of 50 percent or higher in the public. Such continued bipolarity is not a good sign for any sort of national consensus and conciliation after the election, no matter which candidate wins.

Kamala Harris is carrying out a rather standard or “normal” reformist Democratic campaign for office, with a decidedly liberal slant sensitive to the concerns of the left wing of the party and warning about the dangers of another Trump administration. Public opinion outside of the Democratic Party does not see her as a particularly effective or popular vice president. Serving in an unusually unpopular administration, she has had to appear more moderate and separate from Biden than her professional record would justify. She is also trying to divert blame from the Biden administration’s failure to secure the southern border, and from her role in that failure. As of late September, she has not even called a press conference, definitely unusual for a presidential candidate. For those who wish to delve more into her campaign, a flow of positive information is available at MSNBC and ample critical comment on Fox News. But, following the purpose of this series of articles, we will focus on Trump’s campaign, in the context of the public opinion and attitude environment in the country at this time.

In stark contrast to Harris’ style, Trump and his allies are continuing to encourage and benefit from the generation of conspiracy theories, make baseless allegations, feature petty and snide personal insults, impugn institutions, repeat frequent lies, and break norms that were customary for both parties for decades. Trump frequently accuses opponents of what he himself is doing, has done, or is planning to do such as “stealing an election” or “weaponizing the Department of Justice,” perhaps to divert attention from and then to justify his own actions because “they did it to us.” His stream of posts on his Truth Social platform for his followers features odd and occasionally emotionally immature content. He frequently shares provocative social media posts by supportive persons. During Harris’ acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Trump defiantly posted 48 times on his platform. (The ongoing websites Trump’s Truth and The Trump Twitter Archive collect Trump’s posts on his Truth Social and other platforms, in a searchable format. His campaign video website is on YouTube.)

Trump is now a convicted felon with several other criminal and civil cases on hold pending the election, which is an unprecedented situation in American presidential history. As often before, he is impugning the election results well ahead of time with accusations of fraud against him, such as voting by legally ineligible non-citizens and “dirty election rolls” (improper voter registrations), as an extension of his constant allegations about 2020. This allows him to set up firm doubts among his followers, so they trust and back him if he loses and he reacts strenuously against the results.

Trump tends to take a personalistic view of the presidency as a tool for his own purposes. He has often pledged, if elected, “absolutely” to pardon the January 6, 2021 rioters, as a group or individually. He could also pardon his convicted allies and end all current federal investigations into his own alleged wrongdoings. When president, Trump often ordered government investigations of his opponents. He has now warned explicitly that he will use government for revenge to punish his opponents, including officials, judges, and lawyers involved in his convictions, for “corruption” if he wins, and flaunts his convictions at rallies as a badge of honor for his cause. As Trump said, referring to those involved in his guilty verdict of May 2024 and other trials, “So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”

His age (78) and his record of self-interest, disrespect for the rule of law, two impeachments, attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, level of narcissism, extravagant promises about “Day One” in office, personal insults, angry rhetoric, constant lying, threats, legal problems, defensive performance in the September 10 debate with Harris, and rambling speaking style would have sunk the career of any national politician before he appeared on the electoral scene in 2015. That is, even without considering his unconventional but successful self-glorifying merchandising schemes, such as selling Trump-endorsed “God Bless America” Bibles and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) digital “cards” with heroic images of himself.

Large numbers of Republican former officials who worked closely with him in various capacities (including in national security and foreign policy) have issued remarkable stern warnings about his unfitness to serve “in any office of public trust” and/or have supported Harris. The largely intra-party rebuke by signed letter on September 22, 2024 by “more than 700 high-ranking national security officials” who served in various civilian and military positions is unprecedented in modern times: “This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.” Even J.D. Vance, now his running mate for vice-president, referred to Trump in a New York Times opinion editorial in 2016 as “unfit for our nation’s highest office,” before he decided to join the team. The number of such persons warning about Trump increases each week, but there is no similar Democratic repudiation of Harris.

(Archive) U.S. Senator J. D. Vance speaking with attendees at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, July 16 (Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Yet none of these supposedly weighty disadvantages have done much to lower his approval in the public opinion polls, at almost 50 percent in September 2024. Such persistence is a significant measure of the disdain that a large portion of his voters feel for “business as usual” in government, for “experts,” for liberal arrogance, disrespect, and social engineering, for the “mainstream media,” and for the policies of the Democratic Party, which many of them denounce (echoing Trump) as “socialism” or “communism.” His enthusiasts are urgently determined to reverse the course of what they see as a rapidly deteriorating and failing nation in crisis, regarding defense, economy, level of government waste and debt (now 121% of GDP), social mores, freedom, patriotism, education, crime, foreign economic dependency (“jobs shipped overseas”), ongoing involvement in wars, and unchecked immigration at levels never seen before (a “border invasion”). They are highly suspicious about anything thought to be originating from the “liberal establishment” or the “deep state.” The resilient success of Donald Trump in maintaining a large following since the 2016 campaign is a measure of his marketing skills. But, more broadly, it highlights dramatically the degree of failure of the American model of democracy in recent decades to accommodate adequately the widening range of beliefs and interests of an increasingly diverse population (in many aspects) and to meet successfully the mounting challenges to public policy.

The Evolving American Political Culture and Public Opinion

The national dialogue in this very competitive campaign is focused mainly on the economy, massive immigration, crime, abortion rights, and cultural issues. However, partisan disagreement runs far deeper and has widened on most issues since 2003, as shown by a 2003 to 2023 time-series Gallup Poll survey analysis and also by Pew Research. The current national discourse is dominated and riven by pro- and anti-Trump sentiments, a watershed which has caused partisan discord and unpleasant quarrels down to the friendship and family levels of daily life since 2016. An October 2022 New York Times poll concluded that

“Nearly one in five voters — 19 percent — said that politics had hurt their friendships or family relationships… as people with years of common experience came to the conclusion that they no longer even agreed on enough facts to have coherent arguments… Close to half of the voters in the survey also acknowledged making judgments about other people based on their politics. Forty-eight percent of those polled said that knowing a person’s political views told them either a lot or a little about whether someone was a good person.”

Since that date, social tensions have only increased. The campaigns are occurring in a largely negative public attitude climate and amidst long-standing unresolved national shortcomings, such as distrust of election procedures, that set the stage for heightened tension and potential violence if members of the losing side react forcefully. This potential appears to be most apparent among Trump supporters, according to nearly all polls on the subject. Both parties have readied teams of lawyers for the expected post-election legal challenges. The American Bar Association established quick-response teams of lawyers to offer prompt legal assistance before and after the election, to safeguard democratic procedures and institutions. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the federal government set up a website to differentiate rumor from reality about the process, in view of the large number of inadvertent and deliberate cases of false information that are certain to arise.

Partisans in the two-party system are tempted to blame the “other side” for the national tensions and to absolve their own of blame. But an examination of the political system as a whole, especially in a comparative and time-series context, shows serious institutional and political culture dysfunctions and distrust that represent a growing challenge to democratic values, norms, institutions, and procedures. An August 2024 poll by Pew Research found that “Currently, Democrats are 30 percentage points more likely than Republicans to express confidence that the presidential election will be conducted fairly (77% vs. 47%).”

In April 2024, Gallup concluded the following from its international survey of attitudes in the publics of the G7 democratic nations:

“Given these realities, the U.S. now ranks last on the National Institutions Index compared with the rest of the G7. The National Institutions Index is a composite measure of the confidence a country’s residents have in key national institutions such as the military, the judicial system, the national government and the honesty of elections. In 2006, the U.S. topped the index among G7 countries, scoring 63 out of a possible 100. In 2022, it ranked at the bottom for the first time on record, scoring 53, and consolidated its position with a decline to 49 last year.”

The characteristics of the electoral situation in 2024 were summarized in comparative contrast by The Economist:

“American elections tend to create conflict. America is the only proper presidential democracy in which the person who wins the most votes does not necessarily win power. The two-month gap between voting and election certification in Congress is the most drawn-out anywhere. Complexity invites legal challenges, which add to the complexity. For all those reasons, American elections demand patience and trust. Unfortunately, the country comes joint last among the G7 on trust in the judiciary and dead last on belief that its elections are honest.”

Democratic Decline, Authoritarianism, and Political Violence

Authoritarian or autocratic sentiments and rule are expanding globally, with effects impacting democratic countries. The vast majority of the American public still firmly supports democracy in the abstract, according to panel surveys done from 2017 to 2022 by the Democracy Fund. But some are willing to make exceptions in specific circumstances when their own interests conflict with procedures and outcomes, a stance termed “democratic hypocrisy.” That is, “support for the idea of democracy was higher than support for its keystone components, such as checks and balances, comfort with pluralism, acceptance of unpopular election results, and condemnation of real-world instances of political violence.”

In the study’s panel surveys, “strong leader” was defined for participants as one “who doesn’t have to bother with Congress and elections” to get things done (i.e., no institutional balance of power). Some of the many insightful findings of this through and excellent long-term panel project include:

“We define consistent authoritarians as anyone who consistently supports any of the alternatives to democracy — having strong leaders, army rule, or favoring a military coup to deal with corruption — or who consistently justifies violence to achieve political goals. About 8 percent of Americans overall met these criteria… The real risk to American democracy, then, is the significant share of people who support or accept anti-democratic behavior and political violence when their side does it and who are willing to give up on democracy to advance their partisan interests… When party leaders take anti-democratic actions — like changing electoral rules to their advantage, weakening the power of checks and balances, or subverting elections outright — their supporters are willing to follow along…. The highest levels of support for authoritarian leadership come from those who are disaffected, disengaged from politics, deeply distrustful of experts, culturally conservative, and have negative views toward racial minorities.”

The “democratic hypocrisy” level or “partisan double standard” was especially marked among Republicans, in contrast to Democrats (the latter even during the Trump presidency), a fact brought out in other studies of public opinion. Those who support violations of democratic principles tend to justify it as pursuit of a greater good, one in line with the views and interests of their party. The Democracy Fund report notes:

“Among the 81 percent of Republicans who believed in September 2020 that it is important for the loser to acknowledge the winner of the election, 62 percent rejected Biden as the legitimate president after the election, 53 percent said it was appropriate for Trump to never concede the election, 87 percent thought it is appropriate for Trump to challenge the results of the election with lawsuits, and 43 percent approved of Republican legislators reassigning votes to Trump. Republicans who exhibit higher levels of affective polarization were the most resistant to accepting an electoral loss.  In contrast to an overwhelming and consistent rejection of political violence across four survey waves, the violent events of January 6, 2021, were viewed favorably by Republicans. Almost half of Republicans (46%) described these events as acts of patriotism and 72 percent disapproved of the House Select Committee that was formed to investigate them.”

Regarding the prevalence of authoritarian sentiments in the American population as a whole, as it relates to the 2024 election, a large September 2024 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute concluded

“Our new survey finds that four in ten Americans are susceptible to authoritarian appeals, and that number rises to two-thirds of Republicans and white evangelical Protestants… Notably, while the vast majority of Americans reject the use of political violence, those who support authoritarianism are nearly twice as likely as the general public to support it. These findings should serve as an important warning as we enter an election season that is incredibly consequential for the health of American democracy… Republicans are about 2.5 times more likely than Democrats to agree with measures of political violence: that patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country (27% vs. 8%); that everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions (24% vs. 10%); and that armed citizens are needed as poll watchers (24% vs. 10%, respectively). And Republicans who have a favorable view of Trump are significantly more likely than those who have an unfavorable view of Trump to agree with all three statements.”

Most scholars of the subject, and many in law enforcement, agree that political violence, and support for it, is on the rise. In June 2024, Professor Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, noted the recent rise in acceptance of violence by the left, which increases the total number of persons who say they would countenance political violence. His surveys show that there is more support now on the left to accept violence to prevent Trump from regaining office (estimate: 26 million) than from the right to assure that he retakes the presidency (estimate: 18 million), a reversal from just a couple of years ago. Those many millions who would not participate in any violence themselves might well approve of the results of such violence.

Many comparative analyses in a global context have been warning for at least a decade about gradual “democratic decline” in the United States, in areas such as election manipulation (including at the state level), political culture, effectiveness of institutions, and executive overreach. For example, the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index ranked the United States number 26 in the world out of 142 countries in 2023, regarding eight factors of governance. Freedom House has been tracking and analyzing such negative tendencies in the United States, including the threat of false and misleading information and the status of political rights, and civil liberties.

To the contrary, though, in recent years Republican opinion leaders (including House of Representative Speaker Mike Johnson) have taken to insisting that the United States is not a “democracy,” but rather a “constitutional republic.” Republicans talked and propagandized explicitly for decades about Democracy vs Nazism and later vs Communism. President George W. Bush said he hoped to make Iraq and Afghanistan into “democracies,” not “constitutional republics.” As an introductory course in Political Scienceshows, it is possible to be a constitutional republic that is also a representative democracy. This change of terminology is not being done in favor of academic or rhetorical precision, but for some practical political purpose in governance guidance that deserves close subsequent observation, particularly if Trump wins the presidency.

The movement of opinion leaders on the American right toward admiring autocracy or authoritarianism for its traditional values and anti-progressive, anti-“woke” characteristics has been registered on many indicators and by events. The Conservative Political Action Conference was held in Hungary in May 2022, with autocratic President Viktor Orbán participating. Orbán was also interviewed sympathetically by right-wing talk show celebrity Tucker Carlson in August 2023 and receives ongoing attention at Fox News. Trump received Orbán at his Mar-a-Lago estate in July 2024. In the September 2024 presidential debate with Harris, Trump cited Orbán as an admirer of his, and a widely respected “strong” leader. Trump has often voiced his admiration for dictators as “strong leaders,” often calling them “smart.” Trump correspondingly portrays Harris as too “weak” (and too liberal) to be an effective president, hinting that as a woman she would not be taken seriously by important foreign leaders, especially adversaries.

Best friends: Trump and Viktor Orbán pose for a photo in New Jersey in August 2022 (Source: RadioFreeEurope)

Several major organizations have conducted studies and simulations about the nation’s institutional ability to resist an onslaught of authoritarian attempts to monopolize or to seize full power, including by gradual attrition and subterfuge. Just Security posts an American Autocracy Threat Tracker that “comprehensively catalogs all of Trump’s and his allies’ Project 2025 and other specific plans and promises.” In May and June of 2024, the Democracy Futures Project of the Brennan Center for Justice conducted “five nonpartisan tabletop exercises premised on an authoritarian candidate winning the presidency to test the resilience of democratic institutions. The antidemocratic executive actions explored in the scenarios were based on former President Donald Trump’s public statements about his plans for a potential second term in office.” The exercises consisted of five simulations with experienced senior professionals, 175 participants from both parties and independents, from many social and governmental sectors. In the words of Barton Gellman, executive director of the Center, “The games demonstrated repeatedly that an authoritarian in control of the executive branch, with little concern for legal limits, holds a structural advantage over any lawful effort to restrain him… The exercises suggest that it would not be possible to block every abuse, but there are tools available to deflect, delay and diminish the damage.”

The Pre-election Environment

The United States in 2024 shows broad agreement in theory on its basic values, but suffers from two conflicting and disparate partisan streams of information and meaning on the practical specifics (examples: Fox News vs MSNBC). There are separate “truths” or “facts that really matter” about almost everything and different “credible sources,” including about the nature, key characteristics, procedures, and institutions of democracy, the key terms to stress, and which issues and scandals are the most pressing and which to ignore (often by “selective outrage”). Each side feels better-informed and tends to see heavy consumers of the opposite flow as misinformed and wrong-headed because those other sources “hide the truth.” Strong partisan animosity blocks the dialogue and bipartisan compromise that used to be possible. Americans widely agree that “democracy is at stake,” but differ greatly on who or what is the threat. Civic literacy among the population shows weaknesses (particularly on important details of elections and government functioning), and preserving democracy is seldom at the top of a voter’s concerns at the polls, two disadvantages for citizen protection of democracy. But an Economist/YouGov poll in early September 2024 showed that most Americans were devoting attention to the election campaign, answering “A lot” (47%), “Some” (29%), “Only a little” (17%), and “None at all” (7%).

Aspects of the Constitution that came into force in 1789 have become unwieldy in the national conditions of the early 21^st Century, and and change in that basic document is very difficult politically. The common assumption over decades, including in American Government college textbooks, that Americans fully support democracy has been disproven in theory and practice. Americans are definitely dissatisfied with the condition of the nation and express an exhaustion with years of strife and division. National self-confidence has been shaken, more so than in many countries with advanced economies. An April 2024 Pew Research survey showed “just 19% of Americans say democracy in the United States is a good example for other countries to follow.”

The public is skeptical about election information in general, with record-low trust in government over the last 15 years. Only 50 percent of Democrats, 35 percent of Republicans, and 24 percent of Independents believe that the November 2024 elections will be “open and honest,” in a September 2023 survey by the Public Affairs Council. About 70 percent of Republicans still believed in September 2024 that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump by fraud, and most are frustrated that the mainstream media does not take their complaint seriously. Why the suspicion and anger? The 2020 election was so close in the Electoral College results that a hypothetical reallocation of merely 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin (0.28 percent of the total cast nationally) would have resulted in a tie in the Electoral College, throwing the election into the House of Representatives, with a probable Trump victory. An AP-NORC poll found that Republicans are more likely in November 2024 to trust Trump’s word rather than the official election results for accurate information, at 67% to 51%, while 87% of Democrats trust the official figures.

Trump regularly raises expectations among his fans for the certainty of his victory to save the country, contrasted against his apocalyptic views of the supposedly extreme results of a Harris presidency, such as “Israel will cease to exist,” “you’re going to end up in World War III,” and predicting “a depression if she becomes president. Like 1929.” In March 2024, he affirmed, “If we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country.” He said at a Las Vegas rally in June 2024, “The only way they can beat us is to cheat,” a common assertion of his. To add to the sense of grave threat he uses to describe the country, in mid-September Trump referred to Harris with “This is a radical-left, Marxist, communist, fascist.”

A broad Gallup Poll analysis of the election environment in late September 2024 determined that “Nearly all Gallup measures that have shown some relationship to past presidential election outcomes or that speak to current perceptions of the two major parties favor the Republican Party over the Democratic Party.”

The election turnout in 2020 was 66.7 percent of eligible voters, the highest since 1900, a sign of unusual voter mobilization and an elevated level of public concern about the candidates and the direction of the country. The election of November 5, 2024 may also see extraordinary voter turnout because of the high stakes inherent in the sharply divergent options.

The definitive Electoral College results will depend on the outcome in only about seven “swing” states (of the fifty) that are still competitive – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pensylvannia, and Wisconsin –, and pressure on voters and election officials there is intense. Disputes and scrutiny about “invalid ballots” and “election irregularities” are almost a certainty. Many millions of voters on the losing side will be frustrated, and the winner in the Electoral College may again have a minority of the popular vote, for the third time since 2000. Organizations and journalists have sketched out possible post-election negative scenarios. How the winners and losers react to whatever happens in the aftermath of the election will be the next crucial stress test of the resilience of American democracy, and the subject of the next article in this series.

More from this author at OPEU

Informe OPEU “A Profile of Trump Voters: The Demographics of his MAGA Enthusiasts and Their Relationship to Him”, 9/18/24 [Portuguese version coming soon]

Informe OPEU “A Profile of Trump Voters: Values and Policy Preferences”, 8/23/24 [Portuguese version coming soon]

Informe OPEU “The Appeal of Donald J. Trump”, 6/24/24 [Portuguese version available here, translated by Tatiana Teixeira, Post-doctoral researcher (INCT-INEU) and editor of OPEU]

Book review “Eric Hoffer’s ‘The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements’”, 3/11/24 [Portuguese version available here, translated by Andressa Mendes, PhD candidate at San Tiago Dantas International Relations Program (Unesp, Unicamp, PUC-SP), Brazil]

Estudos e Análises “American Political Culture in Transition: The Erosion of Consensus and Democratic Norms”, 2/29/24

Estudos e Análises “Is the United States ‘Exceptional’?”, 8/3/21 [Portuguese version coming soon]

Publicity “Virtual Library: The Ultimate Online Research Guide”, 4/26/21

Informe OPEU “Suggested Cost-Free Online Sources for U.S. Politics and Foreign Policy”, 6/2/21

* Wayne A. Selcher, PhD, is Professor of International Studies Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, PA, USA, and a regular contributor to OPEU. His major academic interests are Comparative Politics, American society and politics in comparative context, American Foreign Policy, Latin American Politics and Foreign Policy (especially Brazil), and Internet use in international studies teaching and research. He is the creator and editor of the WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources, a web guide for online international studies research in many topics. E-mail: wayneselcher@comcast.net.

** Final review and edit: Tatiana Teixeira. First version received in September 30th, 2024. This content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of OPEU, or INCT-INEU.

*** About OPEU, or to contribute articles, contact editor Tatiana Teixeira. E-mail: tatianat19@hotmail.com. About our Newsletters, for press service, or other matters, contact Tatiana Carlotti. E-mail: tcarlotti@gmail.com.

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