Republicans’ 2022 Lesson: Voters Who Trust Elections Are More Likely to Vote Democratic
In the 2018 midterm elections, voters who believe the government is “doing a good job” of governing for their best interests were more likely to cast their ballot for the congressional delegation they did, while voters who trusted the government were, on average, less likely to vote for a representative of their party.
The latter finding might seem odd, given that elections are supposed to be the most accurate and reliable barometer of a government’s performance. Yet many voters believe that elections are mostly reliable, too.
A new study released Wednesday by The New York Times suggests that voters who are most confident in their government tend to be the most reliable ones themselves. However, the paper notes, there’s a catch.
The study, out of MIT, found that voters who trust politics the most are more likely to vote Democratic in the presidential election and less likely to vote Republican. The study also found that this voter trust in elections is strongly associated with the voter trust in their government.
Of course, voters who are more likely to trust their government aren’t necessarily necessarily more likely to vote in line with the government’s policies. But it’s also true that those who trust the government are less likely to vote Republican for president, as this recent Washington Post-NORC analysis found.
The findings come as Republican presidential candidates are struggling to boost their turnout rate, with less-than-expected numbers in early voting in several places across the country, and as Democrats are struggling to hold onto voters who’ve already voted.
The study was written by two MIT professors, Michael Schuman, who is a political science professor and director of the program on Elections and Politics, and Andrew Gelman, who is a political science professor. Gelman notes that when voters trust elections are very low, the most reliable indicator of a government’s performance is whether or not voters trust the government.
Schuman and Gelman note that in many ways
