At a time of potential danger to American democratic norms and institutions, it is more urgent than ever for scholars to highlight the risks to our system of government. In this spirit, Bright Line Watch brings together a group of political scientists to monitor democratic practices, their resilience, and potential threats.
Featured report
Concessions and non-concessions in the 2020 and 2022 elections for Congress
Concession statements by defeated candidates are an important political ritual. They signal the candidate’s adherence to the democratic rules of the game, which depend on parties to settle who holds power via elections and to respect the legitimacy of the system in both victory and defeat.
Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 U.S. presidential election flagrantly violated this norm, raising concerns about a potential wave of non-concessions among like-minded election deniers running for office in 2022. After hedging as to whether they would accept the results, some prominent statewide candidates did refuse to acknowledge the results but the feared avalanche of election denialism never materialized. Still, experts currently forecast that former President Trump will again refuse to concede if he loses the November 2024 presidential election (median forecast: 93%) and that one or more statewide candidates in 2024 will refuse to concede (75%).
This report offers the most comprehensive account of concessions and explicit refusals to concede in elections for federal office since Trump’s landmark election denial. We measure the frequency of these statements among runners-up in the 2020 and 2022 congressional elections from both parties and also identify candidates for whom no public statement on the outcome of the election can be found.
November 2024
Bright Line Watch in the media
by Francis Wilkinson at Bloomberg, 10/17/2024
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