All credible evidence tells us that the 2020 election was very secure. … Nevertheless, the vast majority of Republican voters say they agree with Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen. In our most recent University of Massachusetts at Amherst poll, fielded online Dec. 14-20 by YouGov among a nationally representative sample of the U.S. voting-age population, only 21 percent of Republicans say Joe Biden’s victory was legitimate. …
Some observers wonder whether these beliefs are genuine or just an example of expressive responding, a term social scientists use to mean respondents are using a survey item to register a feeling rather than express a real belief. …
To further explore how genuinely Republicans believe the “big lie,” we embedded a list experiment in our December UMass Poll. CONTINUED
Lane Cuthbert & Alexander Theodoridis (U. of Massachusetts Amherst), Monkey Cage
The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack