Courts, campaigns, and confidence in American democracy
Bright Line Watch February 2024 survey
The 2024 campaign promises to be like nothing the United States has seen before. Normally, spring of a presidential election year is dominated by a competitive campaign for the nomination of at least one major party. This year, neither the Democratic nor Republican primary contest is competitive. Instead, the coming months appear set to be dominated by legal machinations, with Republican front-runner Donald Trump facing four sets of criminal indictments and his legal team deploying appeals and procedural objections to delay trials for as long as possible.
In this context, and with attention to the potential implications of these developments for the performance of American democracy, we fielded parallel surveys of 678 political scientists and a representative sample of 2,798 Americans from February 15–23, 2024. Given the importance of precisely measuring Republican perceptions of topics such as the 2020 election and prosecutions of Trump, the public survey included an oversample of Republicans. It is, however, weighted to be representative of the American public as a whole.
Our key findings are the following:
Perceptions of legal cases related to the presidency
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Democrats and Republicans are deeply polarized over whether states should be allowed to disqualify Trump from the ballot and on Trump’s claim to criminal immunity for actions taken while he was president. Public support for the immunity claim is lower, however, attracting only 51% support even among Republicans and 28% overall.
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Experts are divided over the merits of disqualifying Trump from the ballot, but 94% say that upholding Trump’s claims to criminal immunity would threaten democracy, including 64% who say that doing so would constitute an extraordinary threat.
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A narrow majority of the public (54%) trusts the Supreme Court to make impartial decisions in Trump-related cases. Confidence is much higher among Republicans (69%) than Democrats (44%).
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An overwhelming majority – 95% – of experts say that the federal criminal trial of Trump for seeking to overturn the 2020 election should begin as soon as possible (51%) or be scheduled without regard for the electoral calendar (44%). Very few think the trial should only begin if it can be completed well before the election or be postponed until afterward.
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Fewer than half of Americans believe that the criminal prosecutions of Trump are politically motivated. Large majorities of Republicans (79–82%) believe that the prosecutions unfairly target Trump whereas majorities of Democrats reject this idea. Experts generally reject the premise that prosecutors are targeting Trump, although 40% believe that the New York hush money case would not have been brought against another person.
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A majority of the public (including 88% of Republicans and 43% of Democrats) believes President Biden would have been prosecuted by the Justice Department if he were someone else for his handling of classified documents after leaving office as Vice President.
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Large majorities of experts believe Trump committed crimes in three separate cases. The hush money case in New York is least convincing to experts (69% say he committed a crime), while the documents case is most convincing (93%). Democrats (74–80%) believe Trump committed crimes related to the 2020 election and in his handling of classified documents. Very few Republicans agree (12–21%). Overall, public belief that Trump committed crimes ranges from 43–49% depending on the allegation.
Perceptions of threats to democracy
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Pluralities of experts view the House impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas (43%) and its investigation into Biden’s family and finances (42%) as threats to U.S. democracy. Concerns about House investigations into anti-Semitism and plagiarism in higher education are less acute.
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Experts believe there is a greater than 90% chance of each of the following if Trump were returned to the presidency: that he would fire Special Counsel Jack Smith (92%), that he would pardon convicted January 6 insurrectionists (92%), and that he would suspend ongoing prosecutions of January 6 defendants (91%). Large majorities of Republicans (72–81%) would approve of these actions.
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Experts also believe Trump would be very likely to open a criminal investigation into Biden or another leading Democrat (85%) and to pardon himself of federal charges or convictions (83%). GOP approval of these actions is high (84% and 68%, respectively).
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Experts believe that, if elected again in 2024, it is more likely than not that Trump will attempt to stay in office beyond January 2029 (60%), invoke the Insurrection Act (59%), and withdraw from NATO (54%). GOP approval of these actions is lower, but majorities approve of withdrawing from NATO (56%) and invoking the Insurrection Act (64%). Support falls below 50% only for attempting to stay in office. However, this action, which would explicitly violate the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, is still endorsed by 32% of Republicans.
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Support for second term Trump actions that would violate democratic norms or rules is extremely high among Republicans who consider themselves to be more of a Trump supporter than a supporter of the GOP (69–90%) — the sole exception is attempting to stay in power after the end of his term in 2029, a violation of the Constitution that still attracts 41% support. Even among Republicans who instead describe themselves as primarily supporters of the GOP, majorities endorse each act in question except for NATO withdrawal (40%) and Trump trying to stay in power (23%).
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Attitudes toward Trump are hardened. Using a novel survey technique, we find that even his inflammatory statements about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” have minimal impact on respondents’ opinions of him.
Perceptions of presidential elections
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Republicans are confident that their own votes (79%) and votes in their state (77%) will be counted as intended in the 2024 election, but their confidence in vote counts nationally drops off sharply to just 54%. Democrats are more confident in the integrity of the vote count at all levels.
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Confidence that Biden was the rightful winner in 2020 remains sharply polarized; the partisan gap on this question has not changed since last year.
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Experts rated a Biden-Trump rematch as highly likely even before Super Tuesday: median estimates of nomination were 94% for each. Among the public, likelihood estimates were lower, especially for opposition candidates — Democrats gave Trump just a 70% chance of being the nominee and Republicans gave Biden only a 50% chance.
Perceptions of democracy overall
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Assessments of the performance of U.S. democracy have risen slightly among the public since last summer, with the increase driven by Democrats, whose average ratings rose from 58 to 63 on a 100-point scale. Expert assessments, which are typically higher than those of the public, remain steady at 70.
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However, both experts and the public project democratic declines in the future. These anticipated changes vary depending on who wins the presidency in 2024. Experts project small improvements if Biden or Republican Nikki Haley wins but expect a sharp decline in a second Trump term. Democrats expect improvement under Biden and decline under Haley and especially Trump. Republicans, by contrast, rate democracy higher if Trump wins and lower under Biden (with a Haley win leaving ratings unchanged).
Legal proceedings and the presidential election
Former president Trump faces four sets of criminal charges — two at the federal level (the election conspiracy in case Washington, DC and the document handling case in Florida) and two at the state level (the election racketeering case in Georgia and the business records/hush money case in New York). Jury selection for the trial in the New York case is scheduled to begin on March 25, 2024. Trial schedules for the other cases are uncertain and subject to procedural challenges.
Through the latter half of 2023 and into 2024, President Biden had also been under investigation by Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur for his handling of classified documents after leaving office as Vice President in 2017. In February 2024, Hur released a report concluding that criminal charges were not warranted.
In addition, two key cases related to the 2024 presidential election have landed before the U.S. Supreme Court in recent months. The first was an appeal of a decision by the Colorado state Supreme Court that would have barred Trump from the presidential ballot in that state on grounds of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the election of former officeholders who have engaged in insurrection. On March 4, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Colorado decision, effectively opening the path for Trump to appear on ballots in every state.
The other case stems from an effort by Trump to block prosecution on Special Counsel Smith’s charges related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election on grounds that former presidents are immune from prosecution for actions they took as president. On February 27, the Court agreed to hear arguments in April on Trump’s criminal immunity claims. The effect was to push back any trial on the special counsel’s charges until late summer or fall at the earliest.
We asked participants in our expert and public surveys a series of questions related to these cases. The results are reported below.
Perceptions of SCOTUS ballot disqualification and immunity cases
During the period that our surveys were in the field, the U.S. Supreme Court had not resolved the ballot disqualification case nor agreed to hear the criminal immunity case. We asked experts and the public to consider both issues.
Respondents in the public sample were asked whether Trump should be disqualified from the ballot for engaging in insurrection and whether he should have immunity from criminal prosecution for actions he took while he was president. The figure below shows the percentages of Democrats, Republicans, and the public overall who answered yes in each case. There is a familiar partisan split on both issues, with 77% of Democrats favoring ballot disqualification compared to just 10% of Republicans. More Republicans (51%) than Democrats (10%) support immunity for Trump, but the issue splits even the ex-president’s own party.
Overall public support for legal immunity (28%) is far lower than for ballot disqualification (43%), though we note that the cases were at different stages when the survey was fielded. The ballot disqualification case had already been debated extensively when it was argued before the Court (though the decision had not been issued). By contrast, arguments in the immunity case, which are scheduled for April, will bring new levels of attention to that question, potentially shifting public opinion.
In its decision reversing the Colorado state Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the specter of retaliatory ballot disqualification – the prospect that disqualification of one party’s candidate in some states would prompt offsetting disqualifications in other states. With that prospect in mind (although before the Court’s decision), we asked our public sample whether they thought that “Republican officials should seek to disqualify Joe Biden from the 2024 ballot in response to similar efforts against Donald Trump.” In total, 61% of Republicans and 40% of independents agreed with this statement, suggesting that retaliatory disqualification would enjoy substantial public support in Republican strongholds.
We also surveyed our expert sample about these cases, asking not what outcomes they preferred but whether they would regard specific decisions as threats or benefits to democracy. We first asked respondents to assess the consequences for democracy of the prior Colorado state Supreme Court decision ruling that the 14th amendment to the US Constitution prohibits Trump from appearing on Colorado ballots because of his actions on January 6, 2021.
We then asked them to prospectively assess two paired scenarios for the impending decisions on ballot disqualification and criminal immunity as either threats or benefits to democracy:
Ballot eligibility case:
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U.S. Supreme Court upholds the decision by the Colorado state Supreme Court barring Donald Trump from that state’s ballot for election to the presidency in 2024
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U.S. Supreme Court overturns the decision by the Colorado state Supreme Court barring Donald Trump from that state’s ballot for election to the presidency in 2024, allowing Trump to appear on the ballot
Immunity case:
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U.S. Supreme Court upholds Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for former presidents
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U.S. Supreme Court rejects Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for former presidents
As the figure below shows, experts were divided over the initial Colorado decision declaring Trump ineligible for the ballot in that state. Fifty percent of experts rated it as beneficial to democracy (versus 23% who identified it as a threat). However, these views were not held strongly; just 35% saw a reversal of the Colorado decision — the judgment that the U.S. Supreme Court would reach — as a threat to democracy. (23% said it would be beneficial to democracy).
In the immunity case, we find near consensus among experts and symmetry in their judgments of the effects of upholding versus rejecting Trump’s claim. In total, 94% of experts regard a decision upholding the immunity claim as a threat to democracy – including 64% who regard it as an extraordinary threat – and 93% regard rejecting the claim as a benefit to democracy. According to experts, the case to be argued before the Court in April will have profound consequences for American democracy.
Public confidence in Supreme Court impartiality
We also asked the public whether they believe the Supreme Court can be trusted to make impartial decisions in Trump-related cases. The figure below shows the percentage of the public overall, as well as among Democrats and Republicans, who are very or somewhat confident that the Supreme Court will make impartial decisions in Trump-related cases. Republican confidence, at 69%, far outpaces Democratic confidence, at 44%. Among the public as a whole, only a narrow majority of 54% has confidence in the Court’s impartiality in this area.
Expert views on Trump federal trial schedule
As the November presidential election approaches, the timing of Trump’s trials could be as consequential as their outcomes. We fielded our survey in February. At the time, Trump had appealed his immunity claim to the Supreme Court so the timing of his federal trial for seeking to overturn the 2020 election was in flux. We asked experts when the trial should take place. They overwhelmingly indicated that the trial should begin as soon as possible (51%) or be scheduled without regard for the electoral calendar (44%). Very few said the trial should only begin if it can be completed well before the election or should be postponed until afterward (3% and 2%, respectively). After our data were collected, the Court agreed to hear the case, delaying Trump’s trial, and scheduled arguments for April 25, the last day of the term.
Perceptions of motivations of Trump and Biden prosecutors
Trump maintains that the criminal charges against him are politically motivated. To determine how widely that belief is held, we asked both experts and the public whether they agreed that “Trump would not have been prosecuted if he were someone else.” In July 2023, we asked these questions about the hush money and documents cases, the only two that had been filed at that time. In February 2024, we asked about all four criminal cases against Trump. Given Trump’s claims of a double standard between the documents cases, we similarly asked participants if they agreed that “Biden would have been prosecuted for his handling of classified documents if he were someone else.” In each case, agreement implies a belief that the prosecutor’s decision was affected by the identity of the target of the investigation.
The figure below shows the percentages of experts, the public overall, and of Democrats and Republicans among the public who say that Trump or Biden were treated differently by prosecutors because of their identities. For cases that we also surveyed in July, the figure shows changes in beliefs over time.
The New York hush money case stands out for the prevalence of belief in its politicization. A total of 40% of experts and 56% of the public, including 32% of Democrats and 82% of Republicans, maintain that another person would not have been prosecuted in the same situation. The decision not to bring charges against President Biden also attracts some suspicion. One-fifth of the experts regard it as potentially motivated by Biden’s identity, as does a solid majority of the public overall, including 43% of Democrats and 88% of Republicans. In the other cases against Trump, the public is about evenly split overall but highly polarized by party. About four-fifths of Republicans say that Trump is being treated differently compared to a third or less of Democrats. Only a few experts endorse this claim, however (13–16%) — overall, they overwhelmingly reject the idea that the decisions to prosecute his handling of classified documents or his efforts to overturn the 2020 election were influenced by his identity.
Where we can measure time trends (in the hush money and documents cases), Republican beliefs that Trump is being targeted have declined slightly but remain high. Democratic beliefs are far lower but have bumped upward, particularly in the documents case where only 20% perceived targeting last summer but 34% do now. Among experts, we see increases on both the hush money and documents cases, most strongly on the former, where the share believing Trump is being treated differently increased from 32% of expert respondents in July to 40% of experts surveyed in February. These shifts are troubling insofar as they suggest a decrease in confidence in the principle of equal treatment under the law.
Views of whether Trump and Biden committed crimes
We first surveyed experts and the public about the then-potential criminal cases against Trump in October 2022, separately asking whether participants believed he had committed a crime in his (i) “handling of classified documents after leaving the White House” and in his (ii) “efforts to change the result of the 2020 election.”1 In July 2023, we again asked about those cases as well as whether participants thought Trump had committed a crime in his “handling of hush money payments to an adult film actress,” and whether Biden had committed a crime in his “handling of classified documents after leaving office as Vice President.”
In our February 2024 survey, we asked again about the criminal cases against Trump as well as the recently dismissed investigation of Biden. The figure below shows the percentage of respondents who regard Trump to have definitely or probably committed a crime on each item as well as the percentage who believe Biden definitely or probably committed a crime in his handling of classified documents.
Among experts, belief that Trump committed a crime in his handling of classified documents remains near-unanimous at 93% (just shy of July’s 94%). Perceptions among experts that he committed a crime in his efforts to overturn the election are only slightly lower at 91% (up slightly from 86% in July). Expert belief in Trump’s criminality is lowest for the hush money case, where the percentage of experts who think he committed a crime was 69% (similar to the 73% who said the same in July). Overall, 66% of experts indicate that Trump committed a crime in all three cases, while an additional 24% say that he committed a crime in two of the cases. Finally, expert belief that Biden committed a crime in his handling of documents is far lower at 19%, though it notably increased from 12% in July’s survey despite Hur’s decision not to bring charges.
Public beliefs that crimes were committed are largely stable over time and fall far below experts for Trump and well above experts for Biden. Around half of the public believes Trump committed a crime in each of the instances we polled. The differences across cases are small, though the public is most persuaded in the Trump documents case (for which the most detailed evidence has been presented in the media) and least persuaded by the New York case (although 43% still believe that Trump committed a crime related to the hush money payment). Although none of the cases persuades a majority, a substantial share of respondents (18–23%) indicate that they do not know whether Trump committed a crime in each case. As a result, the number of people who say that Trump committed a crime outnumbers the number of people who say that he did not. The discrepancy is largest for the documents case, in which 49% say he committed a crime whereas just 28% say he did not.
For all these cases, public opinion is characterized by deep partisan divides. The blue and red markers in the figure above show beliefs among Democratic and Republican respondents. Democrats are generally persuaded of Trump’s criminality, with about three-quarters expressing belief that Trump committed crimes in each case. By contrast, belief in Trump’s criminality is low across the board among Republicans – a majority reject the idea that Trump committed crimes in each question surveyed. These changes are largely stable, though we observe a slight decline in the share of Republicans who believed Trump had committed a crime in the documents case to 21%. It had previously more than doubled between October 2022 (9%) and June/July 2023 (25%), just weeks after Jack Smith’s indictment was unsealed, but this trajectory did not continue after the media’s focus shifted away from this story.
Current and future threats to democracy
Experts assessments of Congressional actions
Given concerns about partisan abuse of institutional powers, we asked our experts to assess the actual or prospective impact on U.S. democracy of the following congressional investigations and oversight activities:
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Senate Armed Services Committee and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability investigation into safety record of the military’s V‑22 tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft
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Senate Appropriations Committee hearings on U.S. military aid to Ukraine
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House Oversight and Accountability Committee and House Judiciary Committee investigations of President Biden on financial corruption allegations
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The House of Representatives impeaches the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, on charges of refusal to enforce immigration laws at the southern border
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House Education and the Workforce Committee hearings on anti-semitism on college campuses
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House Committee on Education and the Workforce into allegations of scholarly plagiarism by then-President of Harvard University, Claudine Gay
Hearings on the Osprey’s safety record and aid to Ukraine reflect traditional Congressional oversight goals and were generally seen by experts as beneficial (44% and 47%, respectively) or having no effect (56% and 49%, respectively).
By contrast, activities in the House of Representatives targeting the Biden administration attracted more skepticism. On February 14, two days before we initially fielded our survey, the FBI indicted the House Appropriations Committee’s main witness, Alexander Smirnov, for fabricating corruption allegations against the Bidens. Forty-three percent of the experts regarded that investigation as a threat to democracy while only 13% regarded it as beneficial. Similarly, 42% of the experts regard the House’s impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, as a threat to democracy while only 2% see it as beneficial.
Two items on the House Education and Workforce Committee’s investigations into higher education drew more disparate assessments from the experts. Thirty-seven percent regarded the committee’s investigation of plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard, as a threat to democracy and 5% regarded it as beneficial. Opinion was most divided on the committee’s investigation into anti-semitism on university campuses — 27% perceived a threat to democracy, 20% perceived a benefit, and 53% indicated it would have no effect.
Scenarios from a Trump second term
We also presented both the experts and the public with a set of hypothetical scenarios that could affect the status of U.S. democracy in a potential second Trump administration. We asked experts to rate the probability of each scenario taking place assuming Trump wins the election. For the public, we instead asked whether they would approve or disapprove of Trump taking the action in question. The scenarios in question, which we drew from media accounts, are listed below.2
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The Trump administration withdraws the U.S. from NATO.3
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The Trump administration directs the Department of Justice to investigate Joe Biden or another leading Democrat.
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The Trump administration invokes the Insurrection Act to deploy the military inside the United States for law enforcement and to quell domestic disturbances.
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The Trump administration directs the Department of Justice to suspend ongoing prosecutions of one or more individuals accused of crimes related to the 2020 election or the events of January 6, 2021.
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The Trump administration fires special counsel Jack Smith.
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Trump pardons one or more individuals accused of crimes related to the 2020 election or the events of January 6, 2021.
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Trump pardons himself.
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Trump attempts to stay in power beyond the end of his term in office in January 2029.
The figure below plots each of the democracy-related items, showing the median probability estimate (from experts) on the horizontal axis and the percentage of Republicans (red markers) and Democrats (blue markers) who approve of the action in question on the vertical axis. The dotted line connecting each red-blue pair reflects the partisan approval gap on that item.
Strikingly, a majority of Republicans endorse each democratic norm-threatening action listed except for Trump attempting to stay in power past the end of his term in January 2029, an act that only 32% endorse. Approval of other actions we surveyed among Republicans ranges from 56% for NATO withdrawal to 84% for investigating Biden. Democrats overwhelmingly disapprove of each. Notably, experts believe that the actions which Trump’s base views most favorably are the ones that are most likely to happen — pardoning himself (83%), directing the Department of Justice to investigate Biden or another Democrat (85%), pardoning or suspending prosecutions of people involved in crimes related to the 2020 election or January 6 (92% and 91%, respectively), or firing special counsel Jack Smith (92%).
In the figure below, we further disaggregate Republican respondents — the group that is most likely to approve of potential Trump actions threatening democratic norms — by whether they consider themselves to be more of a supporter of Trump or the Republican Party.
Republicans who consider themselves to be more of a supporter of Trump are more likely to endorse each action in question than are those who consider themselves to be more of a supporter of the Republican Party. Among this group, support is extremely high (69–92%) for every action listed except for Trump attempting to unconstitutionally stay in power after the end of his term in 2029, which still attracts 41% support. However, we note that the gap between groups is relatively small. In particular, a majority of the Republicans who do not describe themselves as primarily Trump supporters endorse each action in question except for NATO withdrawal (40%) and him staying in power past constitutional limits (23%).
Public confidence in elections
Voter confidence in the 2024 election
We asked respondents to report their confidence that everyone who is legally entitled to vote and seeks to do so will be able to successfully cast a ballot in the November 2024 elections and that their own vote, votes in their state, and votes nationwide in that election will be counted as voters intended. The figure below reports the percentage of people indicating they are “very” or “somewhat confident” in each of these aspects of the 2024 election by party.
Confidence is high among Democrats – 80% think voters who are eligible will be able to vote and confidence in their own vote, votes in their state, and votes nationwide being counted accurately are very high at 91%, 91%, and 85%, respectively. Beliefs about voter access are similar among Republicans (76%) but somewhat lower for their own vote (81%) and votes in their state (81%). Worryingly, just 54% of Republicans express confidence in the nationwide vote count, though this total exceeds the 42% of Republicans who expressed confidence in the midterm national vote in our November 2021 survey at a similar point in that election cycle.
Public acceptance of Biden’s victory in 2020
Once again, we asked Americans about whether they view the 2020 presidential election as legitimate. The figure below shows the share of respondents across different partisan groups who state that Biden was “definitely” or “probably” the rightful winner.
In the first year that followed the 2020 election, attitudes among Republicans were stable. Across four surveys conducted in the year after the election (November 2020-November 2021), only about one quarter of Republicans agreed that Biden was rightfully elected. The level of agreement shifted when we again asked the question in October 2022, increasing to approximately 33%, and has remained stable in the 33–36% range in three subsequent surveys conducted in November 2022, July 2023, and February 2024. As in previous survey waves, election denial is much higher among Republicans who say they are primarily supporters of Trump (a group which made up 51% of surveyed Republican respondents compared to 45% in July 2023). Only 19% of this group recognize Biden’s victory compared to 52% of those who say they are primarily supporters of the party. (Belief in the legitimacy of Biden’s victory is much higher among independents and Democrats at 64% and 94%, respectively.)
The present and future of American democracy
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. Expert ratings, which ticked up in November 2022 after the midterm elections, have stabilized in our two most recent surveys near their highest point since we began our surveys in 2017. In February 2024, the average expert rating was 69.6. The public overall is similarly optimistic, with an average rating of 56.9, which is among the highest in our time series. The public’s recent bump is driven by a sharp increase among Democrats, whose mean democracy ratings rose from 57.5 to 62.2 (Republican ratings remained flat at 55.2).
We also asked respondents to anticipate the future performance of U.S. democracy in 2027 and 2032. Despite their current optimism, both experts and the public anticipate democratic decline in future years (as they did in our last survey). The results are plotted below. Expert concerns focus on the near term, with a projected drop from 69.6 now to 63.9 in 2027 and then stability at 63.6 in 2032. The public expects a smaller but ongoing decline over time (56.9 at present to 55.7 in 2027 and 54.5 in 2032), a trend that is driven mainly by Republicans (54.9 now versus 53.2 and 50.9 in 2027 and 2032, respectively). Democratic projections, by contrast, are stable.
Finally, the February survey also asked expert and public participants to separately project the state of American democracy in 2027 on the same 0–100 scale assuming that either Biden, Trump, or former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley wins the 2024 presidential election. The figure below shows how these projections vary by the outcome of the 2024 race for experts, for the public overall, and for Democrats and Republicans separately. Relative to their 2027 forecast of 64, experts clearly see Trump as a democratic threat (with ratings of U.S. democracy dropping dramatically to 47 if he wins) whereas either a Biden or Haley presidency would be regarded as improving U.S. democracy (increasing to 73 and 70, respectively).
Among the public overall, specifying any specific president depresses projected ratings relative to a generic projection for 2027, with Trump again perceived as the biggest threat. Public ratings also reflect a familiar partisan polarization. Democrats project another Biden term as a slight boost to democracy (increasing from 62 to 68) but regard either Republican candidate as a democratic liability, with the prospect of a second Trump term seen as far more damaging than that of a Haley presidency (35 and 54, respectively). When we asked the same question in November 2022, Democrats perceived a potential Ron DeSantis administration as nearly as damaging as a second Trump administration (mean ratings of 42 and 31, respectively). Republicans, by contrast, see Trump’s restoration to the Oval Office as a democratic asset (increasing from 53 to 63), Biden as a democratic liability of about equal magnitude (decreasing to 42), and Haley’s impact on democracy as neutral (52).
2024 nomination probabilities
As the data above demonstrate, perceptions of the future of American democracy vary dramatically depending on whom people expect to be president. Although neither presidential nomination contest has been competitive so far, scenarios in which the frontrunners are replaced due to age or legal jeopardy have attracted substantial attention. In January, just as primary season was getting underway, many voters expressed skepticism that the 2024 election would be a rematch. We therefore asked both our experts and the American public to estimate the probability that Biden and Trump become the presidential nominees for their respective parties. The figure below shows that the experts see little chance that either frontrunner is displaced (medians of 94% for both).
Among the public overall, probability estimates are more dispersed, yielding lower median values, but partisans on each side are differentially confident in the chances of their own party’s frontrunner. Democrats put Biden’s odds of capturing the Democratic nomination at 81% and Republicans give Trump an 88% probability of being the GOP nominee. By contrast, Democrats give Trump a 69% chance of being the Republican nominee and Republicans give Biden only 50–50 odds of representing the Democrats. Independents are less sanguine overall than partisans are about both candidates, giving Trump a 71% chance and Biden just 50%.
Trump’s comments on immigrants
Former president Trump has repeatedly stated that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” using language that has been linked to Adolf Hitler and other dictators. In polling, fewer than half of Americans, but a majority of Republicans, have said that they agree with this statement. The effect on their opinions of Trump are unknown, though. In a poll of Iowa Republicans who were likely to attend the caucuses in their state, 42% claimed the statement made them more likely to support Trump, not less. However, the political scientists Matt Graham and Alex Coppock have found that this question format typically induces people to report their level of support for a political figure like Trump, not the change in it. We therefore used the counterfactual question format developed by Graham and Coppock to estimate the effect of Trump’s remarks on public opinion of him. (They previously found, in research with Soubhik Barari and Zoe Padgett, that Trump’s indictments had a slightly negative effect on primary vote intention among Republicans.)
We first presented respondents with Trump’s “poisoning the blood of our country” statement and asked them whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. Across the entire sample, 24% of respondents said that they had a very favorable opinion of him, 24% had a somewhat favorable opinion, 13% had a somewhat unfavorable opinion, and 39% had a very unfavorable opinion.
Then, we asked respondents to tell us how they would have answered the same question if they had not heard about Trump’s comments. If Trump’s comments caused a loss of support, we would expect counterfactual support to be higher. Instead, we found no statistically significant change in favorability (23% strongly favorable, 24% somewhat favorable, 16% somewhat unfavorable, 38% very unfavorable). The same pattern of attitude stability was observed among Republicans, whose views did not change measurably overall (48% very favorable and 37% somewhat favorable at baseline versus 47% and 36%, respectively, in the counterfactual format).
Contrary to polling using conventional question formats, our findings suggest that even extreme statements like Trump’s blood poisoning rhetoric are unlikely to affect attitudes toward him given the strength of people’s attitudes toward him and his history of controversial statements.
Appendix
Bright Line Watch conducted its twentieth survey of academic experts and its seventeenth survey of the general public from February 15–23, 2024. Our public sample consisted of 2,798 participants from the YouGov panel who were selected and weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population. We also surveyed 678 political science experts across a diverse range of subfields (5.8% of solicited invitations). 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.
The figure below shows expert likelihood assessments and public approval of Trump 2nd term scenarios that are not directly related to democracy.
- We also asked respondents if they thought Trump committed a crime as part of his role in the events of January 6, 2021, the breach of the U.S. Capitol. At the time, we anticipated that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation could lead to charges broadly related to the January 6 events. The specific charges in Smith’s August 2023 indictment focus on the electoral process and, we think, are captured more precisely by our question on changing the result of the election. We note that the election question wording also broadly describes the racketeering charges filed in Fulton County, Georgia.
- To avoid every item focusing on a democratic norm-related issue, we included questions about actions Trump might take on four policy issues such as trade and taxes. Each participant was shown a random subset of four democratic scenarios and two policy scenarios. See Appendix for results on policy.
- Withdrawal from NATO would be a norm violation because it would contravene legislation passed by Congress in December 2023 prohibiting the U.S. from leaving the treaty without congressional approval.