America Confronts the State of Its Politics in 2024
Bright Line Watch October 2024 survey

In a few weeks, millions of Americans will go to the polls in what will inevitably be described as the most important election of their lifetimes. Millions have already cast ballots early or by mail in an election that has been marked by landmark events and unex­pect­ed turns. After a dis­as­trous early debate, President Biden reluc­tant­ly withdrew his candidacy and Democrats selected Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee. In addition, Republican nominee Donald Trump survived two separate assas­si­na­tion attempts. Since our last report, both parties held their nom­i­nat­ing con­ven­tions, and pro­ceed­ings in Trump’s legal cases continued, though their pace has slowed and they have largely receded from the headlines. With the campaigns taking center stage, so too have false or inflam­ma­to­ry claims by and about the can­di­dates as well as broader concerns about public con­fi­dence in the integrity of American elections and the prospect of another effort to overturn their result.

In this fraught envi­ron­ment, we fielded parallel surveys of 549 political sci­en­tists and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sample of 2750 Americans from September 25–October 8, 2024.¹

Our key findings are the following:

Election expec­ta­tions

• Both parties expect their candidate to win the presidential election (87% for Republicans, 90% for Democrats). In particular, a substantial minority of Republicans (38%) and Democrats (28%) do not even expect the election to be close, creating an opening for claims of fraud or malfeasance if the result differs from their expectations.

• Experts believe Trump will try to claim victory before the race is decided (median forecast: 80% likelihood) and encourage violence and intimidation by his supporters (80%). Just 7% of experts and 24% of the public think Trump will concede if he loses the election. By contrast, 75% of experts and 72% of the public think Harris will concede if she loses the election. 

Campaigns

• Experts rate standard campaign strategies such as promoting voter turnout as more effective than highlighting the threat to democracy posed by the other side for both candidates, including Harris.

• Exposure to a message describing the endorsements that Harris received from former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Rep. Liz Cheney, and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger increased support for her among people who intend to vote in the November election by an estimated one percentage point. 

Threats to democracy

• 80% of Republicans endorse the false claim by Trump and his allies that Democrats are trying to win the election by allowing unauthorized immigrants into the country and giving them the right to vote. Public beliefs about the prevalence of voter and election fraud remain wildly exaggerated, especially among Republicans.

• Compared to October 2022, Republican acceptance of Biden as the rightful winner in 2020 has increased from 33% to 38% and their confidence in the upcoming national vote count has increased from 49% to 57%.

• 95% of Democrats, 82% of Republicans, and 77% of partisan independents regard it as important for the losing presidential candidate to publicly concede defeat, but Pew finds that only 59% of Trump supporters think it is important for him to concede if Harris wins.

• Experts overwhelmingly rate the Supreme Court’s July ruling establishing broad presidential immunity from criminal prosecution as a threat to American democracy, including 75% who view it as a serious or extraordinary threat. 

• After the collapse of Biden’s candidacy, the popularity of an age limit for presidential candidates among the public increased from 61% in September 2023 to 78% today. The increase was driven by Democrats and independents, whose support jumped from 60% and 66% last year to 89% and 81%, respectively. However, 57% of experts oppose the proposal. 

Assassination attempts

• More than a third of Democrats endorsed the claim that the July and September assassination attempts against Trump were staged. Conversely, four in 10 Republicans say that the assassination attempts were not staged but that multiple people were involved in each. 

• 69% of Republicans endorse the claim that Democrats encouraged or incited the assassination attempts against Trump compared to 38% of independents and 9% of Democrats.

Expectations for November’s election

Consistent with other polls, respon­dents to our public survey were closely divided between the two major-party pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. Among the 86% of people who said they intend to vote, 46% said they intend to vote for Trump (including 92% of Republicans) and 49% for Harris (including 94% of Democrats); 14% indicated that they do not intend to vote.

However, we are inter­est­ed not just in how Americans intend to vote, but in their expec­ta­tions about the election outcome. Unexpected results seem to make people doubt the integrity of elections — a tendency that may be exac­er­bat­ed for partisan media consumers. We therefore asked respon­dents in our public survey which candidate they expect to win as well as whether they antic­i­pate the election “will be close” or the antic­i­pat­ed victor “will win by quite a bit.” 

In the aggregate, public expec­ta­tions align closely with current forecasts, which project a toss-up. Overall, 48% of our respon­dents antic­i­pate a Trump victory and 52% predict a win for Harris. Disaggregating by par­ti­san­ship, however, reveals starkly different expec­ta­tions. Republicans over­whelm­ing­ly expect a Trump win (87%); Democrats are similarly opti­mistic about Harris’s chances (90%). (Note: We include partisan leaners in the Democrat and Republican groups here and in analyses below.) 

Within these groups, almost 2 in 5 Republicans and more than 1 in 4 Democrats expect their candidate to win by “quite a bit” (38% and 28%, respec­tive­ly). A sub­stan­tial share of the elec­torate is thus likely to be surprised by the outcome, which is expected to be close. These partisans may be espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to claims of election malfea­sance if the outcome differs from their expectations.

Campaign strate­gies

We asked our expert sample to rate how effective they think each of the following campaign strate­gies would be in helping either Harris or Trump win the general election on a four-point scale from “Not at all effective” to “Extremely effective”:

• Emphasizing threats to democracy posed by the other candidate
• Focusing on policy dis­agree­ments with the other candidate
• Highlighting divisions within the opposing party 
• Emphasizing positive achieve­ments by the party’s own candidate
• Encouraging higher voter turnout by sup­port­ers of the party’s candidate
• Endorsements of the candidate by current or former members of the other candidate’s party

The figure below shows the per­cent­age of expert respon­dents who rated each strategy as very or extremely effective for each candidate.

In general, experts have similar expec­ta­tions about the effec­tive­ness of strate­gies across the two campaigns. There is a notable consensus that mobi­liz­ing turnout, empha­siz­ing the candidate’s lead­er­ship qualities and personal achieve­ments, and high­light­ing policy dis­agree­ments with the other side are all effective approach­es (ranging from 72–98% across can­di­dates). Notably, however, a majority of experts think that it would also be effective for the Harris campaign to portray Donald Trump as a threat to democracy (73%) and to highlight divisions within the Republican Party and endorse­ments from Republican figures such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger (52% and 72%, respec­tive­ly). They do not expect analogous efforts by Trump to be effective (35%, 34%, and 31%, respec­tive­ly) notwith­stand­ing prominent divisions within the Democratic party on the war in Gaza and the defection of former Democrats such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to Trump.

We also conducted an exper­i­ment to assess whether endorse­ments of Harris by Republicans affect their vote inten­tions. To date, Harris has been endorsed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as former House Republican Conference chair Liz Cheney and former House member Adam Kinzinger, the two GOP members on the House January 6 committee. All three have endorsed Harris, citing the threat that a second Trump term poses to American democracy. 

We randomly assigned half of the respon­dents who said they intend to vote in November to read a news article adapted from two recent articles describ­ing these endorse­ments (the other half were not shown anything):

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday that he will vote for Democrat Kamala Harris over fellow Republican Donald Trump in the November election, warning that the former president “can never be trusted with power again.” Cheney and his daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, are the most prominent Republicans to back Harris. Harris also has endorse­ments from former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R‑Ill., and hundreds of local Republican officials.

Controlling for prior vote intention, we find that exposure to the Republican endorse­ments increased intention to vote for Harris by approx­i­mate­ly 1 per­cent­age point, an effect that did not mea­sur­ably differ by party. This small effect is con­sis­tent with what has been found in exper­i­men­tal studies of political advertising.

Campaign mis­per­cep­tions

We also sought to assess the accuracy of public beliefs about salient topics that have been raised during the 2024 campaign. Participants were asked to rate the accuracy of the state­ments below on a four-point scale from “Not at all accurate” to “Very accurate.”

Accurate state­ments:

• Donald Trump was pho­tographed giving a thumbs-up and smiling while posing next to the graves of fallen Marines in Arlington National Cemetery.
• Kamala Harris supported banning fracking when she ran for president in 2020 but no longer supports such a ban.
• The July 13 assas­si­na­tion attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was carried out by a single person acting alone.
• The September 15 assas­si­na­tion attempt on Donald Trump in Florida was carried out by a single person acting alone.

Inaccurate state­ments:

• J.D. Vance wrote in his best­selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” about having a sexual encounter with a couch.
• Kamala Harris is inel­i­gi­ble to serve as president because she is not an American citizen.
• The July 13 assas­si­na­tion attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was staged.
• The September 15 assas­si­na­tion attempt on Donald Trump in Florida was staged.
• Democrats are trying to win the 2024 election by allowing unau­tho­rized immi­grants into the country and giving them the right to vote.

The figure below shows how endorse­ments of accurate (left panel) and inac­cu­rate state­ments (right panel) vary by partisanship.

Unsurprisingly, the accuracy of people’s beliefs about these con­tro­ver­sial claims varies by party. Among the accurate state­ments, Harris’s support for a fracking ban is rec­og­nized by majori­ties of Republicans (64%), Democrats (62%), and inde­pen­dents (59%), all of whom correctly identify that statement as accurate. However, Republicans score highest, which is con­sis­tent with her prior position being used in attacks on Harris. By contrast, Democrats (76%) were far more apt to identify the statement about Trump’s widely crit­i­cized thumbs up picture at Arlington National Cemetery as accurate than were Republicans (35%; inde­pen­dents fell between at 51%). 

Partisan splits on the inac­cu­rate state­ments in our survey are more pro­nounced than for accurate state­ments. 8 in 10 Republicans endorse the false claim promoted by Donald Trump and his allies that Democrats are trying to win the 2024 election by allowing unau­tho­rized immi­grants into the country and giving them the right to vote — a view shared by 50% of inde­pen­dents but only 12% of Democrats. Unlike in the Obama years, however, only 25% of Republicans falsely believe Vice President Harris is not a U.S. citizen and is therefore inel­i­gi­ble to serve as president (as well as 18% of inde­pen­dents and 8% of Democrats). 

When inac­cu­rate state­ments are unflat­ter­ing to Republicans, Democrats are more amenable to sign on. 35% of Democrats — in contrast to 17% of Republicans and 24% of inde­pen­dents — endorse the debunked rumor that GOP vice pres­i­den­tial candidate J.D. Vance’s memoir includes an account of a sexual encounter with a couch. (These results are similar when we exclude people who admit to sometimes “providing humorous or insincere responses to questions” — see Appendix below.) 

A more serious concern is that sub­stan­tial numbers of Democrats endorsed the idea that the July (38%) and September (37%) assas­si­na­tion attempts on Trump were staged rather than real, as did smaller numbers of inde­pen­dents and Republicans. However, majori­ties across the partisan spectrum (ranging from 52% to 75%) stated that the assas­si­na­tion attempts were lone wolf attacks. 

In com­bi­na­tion, we find that fewer than 50% of all respon­dents hold the accurate belief that each attempt was carried out by a single person and not staged (47% for the July attempt, 48% for September). Almost four in ten Americans, by contrast, think that more than one person was involved in a real attempt to kill Trump (26% for each attempt) or that the event was staged by multiple people (12% for July, 11% for September). Finally, for each event, 15% of respon­dents hold the seemingly inco­her­ent view that the event was carried out by a single actor, but that the attempt was staged.

The figure below shows how char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of the July 13 assas­si­na­tion attempt on former President Donald Trump vary by partisanship.

When we dis­ag­gre­gate these beliefs by party, we see notable dif­fer­ences in con­spir­a­to­r­i­al beliefs about the assas­si­na­tions by party. Republicans are more likely to believe that multiple people were involved in a genuine assas­si­na­tion attempt in July (40%), whereas Democrats are more likely to say the assas­si­na­tion was staged, though they divide over whether one person (23%) or many (15%) were involved. (See the Appendix for per­cep­tions of the September attempt, which are very similar.)

Incitement exper­i­ment

Political leaders can foster mis­per­cep­tions about oppo­si­tion partisans that inspire hate or worse. After the assas­si­na­tion attempts against former president Trump this summer, for instance, both Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance suggested that Democrats were respon­si­ble for the assas­si­na­tion attempts. We randomly exposed half of the par­tic­i­pants in our public survey to the following passage quoting Vance and Trump: 

After a second assas­si­na­tion attempt against Donald Trump, his vice pres­i­den­tial running mate J.D. Vance said, “If you tell the American people that this person is the end of democracy, if you tell the American people that this person needs to be elim­i­nat­ed, most of them, thank God, are going to ignore you. But some crazy person is going to take matters into their own hands and actually listen to the crazy rhetoric that you’re putting out there.” Trump later made a similar statement to Fox News Digital, saying that the gunman “believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it. Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at.” 

We then asked all par­tic­i­pants to rate the accuracy of the following statement: “The Democratic Party encour­aged or incited the attempt to assas­si­nate Donald Trump.” We find that the state­ments by Trump and Vance did not mea­sur­ably affect endorse­ment of the statement overall or for any partisan group. However, 69% of Republicans said it was somewhat or very accurate compared to 38% of inde­pen­dents and 9% of Democrats.

Public con­fi­dence in elections

As in prior surveys, we asked respon­dents to report their con­fi­dence that their own vote, votes in their state, and votes nation­wide in that election will be counted as voters intend. We also asked people how confident they are that election admin­is­tra­tors nation­wide will count votes fairly and accu­rate­ly in the pres­i­den­tial election and that everyone who is legally entitled to vote and seeks to do so will be able to cast a ballot in November. The figure below reports how many people are very or somewhat confident in each of these aspects of the 2024 election by party.

For each set of respon­dents, the first three bars show con­fi­dence in the vote count for one’s own vote, votes in one’s state, and votes nation­wide. As in previous surveys, we observe a sub­stan­tial decrease in public con­fi­dence in the vote count as we move from their own vote (84%) and the state level (84%) to the national level (71%). Among Democrats, con­fi­dence declines only slightly across these levels (94% own vote, 94% state vote, 87% national vote). The shift is driven instead by Republicans and inde­pen­dents. For both groups, con­fi­dence at the state level is nearly as high as for one’s own vote (80% and 82% for Republicans, 73% and 67% for inde­pen­dents), but drops off sharply at the national level to 57% and 59%, respec­tive­ly. Confidence in the national vote count closely cor­re­sponds to trust in election admin­is­tra­tors for each partisan group (within two per­cent­age points in each case). We also note that the con­fi­dence gap between the national vote and state and local counts is even greater among Republicans than it was in October 2022 (49% nation­al­ly versus 67% for the state vote and 68% for one’s own vote), though reported con­fi­dence levels are higher today. 

Finally, ballot access per­cep­tions are less polarized. Eight in ten Americans — including 81% of Democrats, 80% of Republicans, and 69% of inde­pen­dents — are very or somewhat confident that everyone who is legally entitled to vote will be able to do so. 

For nearly four years, we have been asking Americans whether Joe Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 pres­i­den­tial election. The figure below shows the share of respon­dents across different partisan groups who state that Biden was “def­i­nite­ly” or “probably” the rightful winner in each survey. In addition to showing Democrats, inde­pen­dents, and Republicans, we specif­i­cal­ly dif­fer­en­ti­ate between Republicans who say they are more of a supporter of Trump and those who say they are more of a supporter of the Republican Party (now 58% of GOP iden­ti­fiers versus 42%; see Appendix).

The public’s views on this question have been starkly polarized for years. Since November 2020, only minori­ties (25%-38%) of Republicans have acknowl­edged Biden’s victory — a vast dif­fer­ence from Democrats, who have over­whelm­ing­ly affirmed the outcome as legit­i­mate (94%-97%). Partisan inde­pen­dents have fallen in the middle, varying from 57% to 68%. After a period of stasis, we observed an uptick in Republican accep­tance of Biden’s win in late 2022 to a new equi­lib­ri­um of 35%-36%. Interestingly, despite the continued insis­tence by Trump and his sur­ro­gates that he won in 2020, 38% of Republicans now say Biden was the rightful winner in 2020 (versus 33% in October 2022), including 23% of those who say they are more of a Trump supporter (pre­vi­ous­ly 16%) and 57% of those who say they are more of a supporter of the Republican Party (pre­vi­ous­ly 49%). These changes may reflect a reduction in Republican animus toward Biden after his with­draw­al from the pres­i­den­tial race. 

In light of the unusual process by which Harris replaced Biden, we also asked Americans whether they see Harris as the rightful nominee. For com­par­i­son, we also asked whether respon­dents regard Trump as the rightful Republican nominee. The responses, broken out by par­ti­san­ship, are below.

The public sees the Trump nom­i­na­tion (71%) as more legit­i­mate than that of Harris (61%) — a pattern that is reflected in the attitudes of inde­pen­dents (67% and 55%, respec­tive­ly). Among partisans, the break­downs show a familiar polar­iza­tion, with Democrats over­whelm­ing­ly (93%) embracing Harris’s nom­i­na­tion as rightful and Republicans largely refusing to do so (28%). Trump’s nom­i­na­tion is endorsed by nearly all Republicans (93%) as well. Unlike Republicans with Harris, Democrats endorse the legit­i­ma­cy of Trump’s nom­i­na­tion, but only narrowly (53%).

We asked Americans how important it is “for a losing candidate to publicly acknowl­edge the winner as the legit­i­mate holder of the office” both in pres­i­den­tial elections and in races for Congress or statewide office. The figure below breaks out the per­cent­age of respon­dents saying it is very or somewhat important for the loser to concede by par­ti­san­ship and office (diamonds for the pres­i­den­tial race, circles for Congress or statewide office).

Democrats are nearly unanimous on the impor­tance of losing can­di­dates conceding for all offices (94%-95%). For statewide or con­gres­sion­al can­di­dates, Republicans and inde­pen­dents were less likely to say con­ces­sions are important before the 2022 midterm elections (79% and 74%, respec­tive­ly). Those levels dropped to 68% and 58%, respec­tive­ly, after the elections in November 2022, but rebounded to 81% for Republicans and 73% for inde­pen­dents in our October 2024 survey. We also asked a new question specif­i­cal­ly about the impor­tance of a losing pres­i­den­tial candidate conceding. The results mirror the impor­tance expressed for con­gres­sion­al and statewide office candidates. 

While these results might seem encour­ag­ing, a recent Pew survey shows that pref­er­ences toward con­ces­sions vary by outcome and candidate pref­er­ence. Among Trump sup­port­ers, 77% say it’s important for Harris to concede if Trump wins, but only 59% say it’s important for Trump to concede if Harris wins. No such asymmetry exists among Harris sup­port­ers — 87% say it is important for Trump to concede if he loses versus 86% who say the same for Harris if she loses. Given our findings above that most partisans expect their party’s candidate to win, many Americans may be answering broad questions about the impor­tance of con­ces­sions with the expec­ta­tion that it is the other candidate who should concede.

Beliefs in voter and election fraud

We asked respon­dents about the preva­lence of six different forms of voter and election fraud: voting by non-citizens, voting under a false identity, stealing or tampering with ballots, voting more than once, voting with another person’s absentee ballot, and changing votes by manip­u­lat­ing voting machine software. For each type of fraud, respon­dents were asked how many times it took place on a seven-point scale from “Never” to “A million or more.” The figure below compares current public beliefs in the preva­lence of fraud in the 2024 election with beliefs in the preva­lence of fraud in the 2020 and 2022 elections from pre- and post-election surveys conducted in November 2020, and a post-election survey from 2022. (We intend to repeat this battery in a post-election survey this November as well.) For each election and for each type of fraud, the figure shows the per­cent­ages of Democrats, Republicans, and inde­pen­dents who estimated that thousands of votes or more were affected in 2020 and 2022 or will be affected in 2024. ²

The public’s beliefs about the preva­lence of fraud are wildly exag­ger­at­ed. There is no credible evidence of “thousands” of cases of any of these types of fraud. Contrary to the claims of Trump and his surrogate, scholars find election fraud incidence to be van­ish­ing­ly rare in general, including in the 2020 election. In this sense, even the beliefs of many Democrats are out of line with empirical evidence. Republican beliefs are even further removed from any empirical support. However, we also note that beliefs about the preva­lence of fraud have generally trended downward since 2020.

Candidate age limit

Since the 22nd Amendment limited pres­i­dents to two terms in 1947, only one incumbent who was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly eligible to run declined to do so (Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968). In July 2024, Joe Biden became the second eligible incumbent to forgo a re-election campaign after his stumbling per­for­mance in a June debate with Trump prompted panic among Democrats about his age and com­pe­tence. In the aftermath of these events, we asked both experts and the public whether they would support or oppose imposing a maximum age for can­di­dates to be eligible to run for president. The figure below shows the results, with responses among the public also broken out by partisanship.

Overall, experts are far more negative toward this proposal than the public, with 57% opposing any age limit. By contrast, 78% of the public endorses an age limit compared to 61% in a Sept. 2023 Quinnipiac University poll. Moreover, each partisan group favors an age limit — 89% of Democrats (up from 60% last year), 81% of inde­pen­dents (up from 66%), and 65% of Republicans (up from 57% last year). The most popular age limit is 70 years old, the most restric­tive option offered, which would have prevented Joe Biden from running for the pres­i­den­cy in 2020 or 2024, Donald Trump from running in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and Ronald Reagan from running in 1984. Such a limit is supported by 63% of Democrats, 59% of inde­pen­dents, and 34% of Republicans. 

Threats to democracy

We asked our experts to assess the impact of a series of recent events on democracy in the U.S. Respondents were first asked whether the event would benefit, threaten, or not affect American democracy. Those who selected benefit or threat were then asked about the extent of such an effect. The set of events that experts were asked to consider was the following:

• The Democratic Party nominates Vice President Kamala Harris to replace Joe Biden without a primary process.
• The Supreme Court rules that the president has “absolute immunity from criminal pros­e­cu­tion for actions within his con­clu­sive and preclu­sive con­sti­tu­tion­al authority” and “at least pre­sump­tive immunity from pros­e­cu­tion” for all official acts.
• The Georgia State Election Board approves new rules that require county election officials to make a “rea­son­able inquiry” before cer­ti­fy­ing election results to the state.
• Donald Trump named J.D. Vance as his vice pres­i­den­tial running mate.
• Kamala Harris named Tim Walz as her vice pres­i­den­tial running mate.
• Judge Juan Merchan delayed sen­tenc­ing until after the election in Donald Trump’s New York trial involving the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of business records related to hush money payments to an adult film actress. 
• Judge Tanya Chutkan announced that pretrial pro­ceed­ings would resume before the election in the trial of Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 pres­i­den­tial election and role in the events leading up to the January 6 Capitol attack.

The left panel of the figure below shows expert ratings of the perceived benefits and threats to democracy from these events in descend­ing order based on their overall perceived threat to democracy. (The right panel shows the per­cent­age of respon­dents who rated the scenario as neither a threat nor a benefit to democracy.)

Experts rate the Supreme Court’s July ruling estab­lish­ing broad pres­i­den­tial immunity from criminal pros­e­cu­tion as the most sig­nif­i­cant threat to democracy among the events listed. In total, 86% rate it as a threat to democracy, including 75% who view it as either a serious or extra­or­di­nary threat. Relatedly, when we asked experts to rate the per­for­mance of American democracy in a variety of domains, we observed a sig­nif­i­cant decline since June only in the share of experts who say the U.S. mostly or fully meets the standard that the judiciary is able to effec­tive­ly limit executive power. The per­cent­age of experts who say the judiciary effec­tive­ly limits executive power declined from 65% in June (before the Court’s decision) to 43% in this most recent survey (see figure in Appendix below).

Majorities of experts were also concerned by recent decisions by the Georgia State Election Board to require county election boards to conduct a “rea­son­able inquiry” before cer­ti­fy­ing election results and to require precinct election officials to hand count ballots and to compare hand count totals with machine counts (75% and 63%, respec­tive­ly). Both changes threaten to delay the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of results and to foster unfounded doubts about election integrity. Fewer than half of experts rated Trump’s nom­i­na­tion of J.D. Vance as his running mate or the delay in Trump’s sen­tenc­ing in New York as a threat to democracy (47% and 38%, respectively). 

Conversely, 67% of the experts regarded Judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision to proceed with pretrial motions in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s pros­e­cu­tion of Trump for his actions around the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as ben­e­fi­cial to democracy. 53% rated Biden’s with­draw­al from the pres­i­den­tial race as a benefit to democracy. Finally, smaller shares regarded Kamala Harris’s nom­i­na­tion without a primary process and her sub­se­quent naming Tim Walz as her running mate as ben­e­fi­cial as well (31% and 24%, respectively).

Assessment of potential future events

We also asked our expert sample to rate the prob­a­bil­i­ty of future events that have con­se­quences for American democracy in the coming months:

• Another assas­si­na­tion attempt is made against one of the two major pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates or one or more arrests are made in another assas­si­na­tion plot.
• Former President Trump declares victory before the Associated Press calls the race.
• Vice President Harris declares victory before the Associated Press calls the race.
• Kamala Harris is declared the winner of the election by the Associated Press.
• Donald Trump is declared the winner of the election by the Associated Press.
• Donald Trump is sworn into office as president on January 20, 2025.
• Kamala Harris is sworn into office as president on January 20, 2025.
• Former President Trump attacks the “blue shift” toward Democrats as mail votes are counted, insisting that the initial totals on Election Night were correct.
• Former President Trump makes state­ments or posts tweets encour­ag­ing violence and intim­i­da­tion during voting or ballot counting.
• The Vice President and the Speaker of the House publicly disagree on the legit­i­ma­cy or cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Electoral College results following the 2024 election.
• A conflict over Electoral College votes causes the appoint­ment of an acting president under the terms of the Twentieth Amendment on January 20, 2025.
• A faithless elector decides the presidency.
• The pres­i­den­tial election is decided by the House of Representatives.
• A state leg­is­la­ture names electors to the Electoral College other than those des­ig­nat­ed by the popular vote in that state.
• One or more can­di­dates who lose elections for statewide office (for example, governor or U.S senator) refuse to concede defeat.
• Disputes over the election results escalate to political violence in which more than 10 people are killed nationwide.
• The winner of the pres­i­den­tial race is not known by November 6, the day after the election.
• At least one county or state election board in a swing state (AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI) refuses to certify election results that are viewed as legit­i­mate by experts.
• State or federal courts must compel the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of election results in one or more swing states (AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI).
• Foreign hackers cripple voter reg­is­tra­tion and election systems in one or more states.
• An unusually large number of pro­vi­sion­al, mail-in, or absentee ballots are rejected in a swing state, poten­tial­ly changing the outcome of the election.
• Kamala Harris refuses to concede defeat within 24 hours.
• Donald Trump refuses to concede defeat within 24 hours.

The figure below reports the median estimate and the dis­tri­b­u­tion of estimates for each scenario among our expert respon­dents on a 0–100% scale. Items are listed in descend­ing order of estimated median probability.

The potential events experts see as most likely all concern Donald Trump’s actions around Election Day — asserting that his election-day vote share should stand if ballots counted later lean toward Harris (median forecast: 82%), encour­ag­ing violence and intim­i­da­tion by his sup­port­ers (80%), and declaring victory before the Associated Press calls the race (80%). Relatedy, the experts also expect that the election winner will not be known by November 6, the day after Election Day (73%). 

Other scenarios rated as more probable than not also concern efforts to deny or challenge election results: one or more losing candidate for statewide office refusing to concede defeat (75%), a county or statewide election board in one or more swing states refusing to certify election results (60%), and state or federal courts inter­ven­ing to compel the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of election results in one or more swing states (60%). 

The median forecast exceeds one chance in three for Vice President Harris and House Speaker Mike Johnson clashing over the legit­i­ma­cy of the election result (47%), more than ten people being killed in election-related political violence (40%), large numbers of ballots being rejected in at least one swing state (40%), at least one state leg­is­la­ture sub­mit­ting a slate of electors other than those des­ig­nat­ed by the popular vote in that state (33%), and another assas­si­na­tion attempt being made against a pres­i­den­tial candidate (33%). 

Events that were seen as less likely include Harris declaring victory before the race is called (24%), hackers crippling election software (20%), or various con­sti­tu­tion­al idio­syn­crasies deter­min­ing the pres­i­den­tial outcome: the appoint­ment of an acting president under the terms of the Twentieth Amendment (14%) or the election being decided by the House of Representatives (12%) or by the vote of a faithless elector (10%). 

We also asked about two scenarios that are con­di­tion­al on specific outcomes in the pres­i­den­tial election — the prob­a­bil­i­ty that Trump refuses to concede within 24 hours if Harris is declared the election winner by the Associated Press, and the prob­a­bil­i­ty that Harris refuses to concede within 24 hours if Trump is declared the winner. We contrast these results with Pew polling asking Americans if each candidate will concede if the other is declared the winner. For Harris, 75% of experts and 72% of the public think she will concede if she loses the election. By contrast, just 7% of experts and 24% of the public think Trump will concede if he loses.

Finally, we asked our experts to rate the prob­a­bil­i­ty both that Harris is declared the winner (53%) versus Trump (48%) and the cor­re­spond­ing prob­a­bil­i­ties of Harris being sworn in as president (52%) and Trump (49%). From these estimates, we estimate that experts assign a median prob­a­bil­i­ty of 0% to Trump over­turn­ing the election result assuming Harris is declared the winner.

Ratings of the state of U.S. democracy

As in each Bright Line Watch survey, we asked both expert and public respon­dents to rate the overall per­for­mance of U.S. democracy on a 0–100 scale. In September 2024, the average expert rating was 70. The public overall is con­sis­tent­ly less sanguine than our experts, with an average rating of 57. Democrats rate American democracy somewhat higher (63) whereas Republicans put it a bit lower (54).

Finally, the September survey asked expert and public par­tic­i­pants to sep­a­rate­ly project the state of American democracy in 2027 on the same 0–100 scale assuming that either Harris or Trump wins the 2024 pres­i­den­tial election.

The experts antic­i­pate improve­ment from 69 now to 77 in 2027 if Harris were elected, whereas they project a major decline to 48 by 2027 if Trump wins in November. The public, by contrast, projects a decline from 57 now to 53 if Harris wins and 48 if Trump wins. However, these pro­jec­tions diverge across the partisan divide. Democrats expect an increase from 64 now to 76 if Harris wins versus 32 if Trump wins, whereas Republicans expect an increase from 54 now to 66 if Trump wins and 36 if Harris wins.

Appendix

Bright Line Watch conducted its twenty-first survey of academic experts and its eigh­teenth survey of the general public from September 25–October 8, 2024. Our public sample consisted of 2750 par­tic­i­pants from the YouGov panel who were selected and weighted to be rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the U.S. adult pop­u­la­tion. We also surveyed 549 political science experts across a diverse range of subfields. Our email list was con­struct­ed from the faculty list of U.S. insti­tu­tions rep­re­sent­ed in the online program of the 2016 American Political Science Association con­fer­ence and updated by reviewing depart­ment websites and job placement records from Ph.D. programs in the period since.

All estimates shown in the report used weights provided by YouGov. Our expert sample is unweight­ed because we do not collect demo­graph­ic data to protect anonymity. Error bars in our graphs represent 95% con­fi­dence intervals. Data are available here.

Both the expert and public samples in Wave 22 responded to a battery of questions about demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance in the United States. Afterward, they were asked to evaluate the quality of American democracy overall on a 100-point scale.

How well do the following state­ments describe the United States as of today?

• The U.S. does not meet this standard
• The U.S. partly meets this standard
• The U.S. mostly meets this standard
• The U.S fully meets this standard

1. Government officials are legally sanc­tioned for misconduct
2. Government officials do not use public office for private gain
3. Government agencies are not used to monitor, attack, or punish political opponents
4. All adult citizens enjoy the same legal and political rights
5. Government does not interfere with jour­nal­ists or news organizations
6. Government effec­tive­ly prevents private actors from engaging in polit­i­cal­ly-motivated violence or intimidation
7. Government protects indi­vid­u­als’ right to engage in unpopular speech or expression
8. Political com­pe­ti­tion occurs without criticism of opponents’ loyalty or patriotism
9. Elections are free from foreign influence
10. Parties and can­di­dates are not barred due to their political beliefs and ideologies
11. All adult citizens have equal oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote
12. All votes have equal impact on election outcomes
13. Elections are conducted, ballots counted, and winners deter­mined without pervasive fraud or manipulation
14. Executive authority cannot be expanded beyond con­sti­tu­tion­al limits
15. The leg­is­la­ture is able to effec­tive­ly limit executive power
16. The judiciary is able to effec­tive­ly limit executive power
17. The elected branches respect judicial independence
18. Voter par­tic­i­pa­tion in elections is generally high
19. Information about the sources of campaign funding is available to the public
20. Public policy is not deter­mined by large campaign contributions
21. Citizens can make their opinions heard in open debate about policies that are under consideration
22. The geo­graph­ic bound­aries of electoral districts do not sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly advantage any par­tic­u­lar political party
23. Even when there are dis­agree­ments about ideology or policy, political leaders generally share a common under­stand­ing of relevant facts
24. Elected officials seek com­pro­mise with political opponents
25. Citizens have access to infor­ma­tion about can­di­dates that is relevant to how they would govern
26. Government protects indi­vid­u­als’ right to engage in peaceful protest
27. Law enforce­ment inves­ti­ga­tions of public officials or their asso­ciates are free from political influence or interference
28. Government sta­tis­tics and data are produced by experts who are not influ­enced by political considerations
29. The law is enforced equally for all persons
30. Politicians who lose free and fair elections publicly concede defeat

The figure below breaks out per­for­mance ratings on each of 30 demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. The markers for each principle indicate the per­cent­age of expert (green) and public (purple) respon­dents who regard the United States as fully or mostly meeting the standard (as opposed to meeting it partly or not at all). Consistent with the overall ratings, the experts rate U.S. demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance more pos­i­tive­ly than the public overall. Few excep­tions exist, however, such as voting rights being equally protected for all citizens, politi­cians operating with a common under­stand­ing on factual matters, and electoral districts not sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly favoring one party over the other.

The figure below shows the public ratings of U.S. demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance broken out by party.

The figure below shows the relative sizes of these two factions within the Republican Party over multiple Bright Line Watch survey waves (October 2022 — October 2024). 

The figure below includes only respon­dents who answered “Never” to the following question: “We sometimes find people don’t always take surveys seriously, instead providing humorous or insincere responses to questions. How often do you do this?”

The figure below shows how char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of the Sept. 15 assas­si­na­tion attempt on former President Donald Trump vary by partisanship.

The figures below plot changes in demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance on specific prin­ci­ples since our prior survey in June 2024 for experts, the American public as a whole, and Democrats and Republicans separately. 

1. Given the impor­tance of precisely measuring GOP attitudes on topics such as con­fi­dence in elections, the public survey included an over­sam­ple of Republicans. It is, however, weighted to be rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the American public as a whole. 
2. Due to a survey error, the scale used in this survey differed from the one used in prior surveys (2024: “A million or more,” “A few thousand,” “A few hundred,” “A few dozen,” “Fewer than a dozen,” “Never; 2020/2022: “A million or more,” “Hundreds of thousands,” “Thousands,” “Hundreds,” “Less than a hundred,” “Less than ten”). We compare the pro­por­tion of people who said “A few thousand” or more in this survey to the pro­por­tion who said “Thousands or more” in the past surveys.