On January 6, 2021, the belief that voter fraud was to blame for Trump’s 2020 loss led thousands of people to storm the Capitol during election certification, aiming to occupy it by force to stop this process. While only thousands participated, millions more voiced their support for the insurrection, and this begs the question: What explains perceptions of voter fraud and support for the January 6 insurrection? Recent studies establish that White conservatives are more likely to believe that voter fraud is a rampant problem, linking these perceptions to state efforts to expand access to voting systems where racial minority groups stand to gain equality. Using a combination of pre-election, post-election, and post-insurrection survey data, we examine the link between White racial attitudes and perceptions of voter fraud and views toward the insurrection. We argue that White racial attitudes are pivotal in explaining the perceptions of voter fraud that led to the January 6 insurrection. We find that White Americans with a bias for their own racial in-group over racial out-groups are likelier to doubt the election results after Donald Trump was declared the loser, though not before. We find these same attitudes are statistically associated with sympathy for the insurrection and insurrectionists.

Widespread claims of voter fraud following the 2020 election were leveraged in an attempt to overturn the result. While many studies have focused on White Americans’ acceptance of these claims, few have examined the responses of Americans of color. This study explores how racial civic pride influences attitudes toward voter fraud claims among different racial groups. We turn to the 2020 CMPS and find that for Black, Latino, and Asian Americans, increased racial civic pride correlates with reduced belief in voter fraud. In contrast, White Americans with higher racial civic pride are more likely to believe such claims. This divergence is evident across all partisan groups. For non-White Americans, racial civic pride is tied to historical struggles for voting rights and racial justice, with voter fraud allegations threatening these values. Conversely, for White Americans, high racial civic pride is linked to preserving their dominance and status. Finally, we find that voter fraud beliefs are not without consequence: they diminish trust in electoral democracy, result in greater support for restrictive electoral policies, and increase support for future violence. Together, these results highlight the differential influence of race and racial civic pride on Americans’ democratic beliefs.

How closely related are modern anti-democratic beliefs among white Americans, and to what extent are these beliefs shaped by exclusionary racial attitudes? Using data from the Political Unrest Study, the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape, and the Survey of the Performance of American Elections (SPAE), we find that support for voting restrictions, opposition to voting expansions, belief in widespread voter fraud, and support for overturning democratic election results load onto a single underlying dimension. While the prevalence of anti-democratic beliefs among white Americans has remained stable over the past decade, these beliefs have become increasingly interconnected. Furthermore, racial attitudes towards out-groups—including racial resentment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and white racial grievance—strongly correlate with anti-democratic beliefs, whereas in-group racial attitudes do not. Analysis of multiple waves of the American National Election Studies (ANES) reveals that racial resentment and white grievance now explain twice as much variation in anti-democratic beliefs as they did in 2012. Experimental evidence also demonstrates that white Americans react negatively to voting expansions when the racial implications of these reforms are made explicit. These findings underscore the growing alignment between anti-democratic beliefs and racial attitudes in contemporary U.S. politics.

Prior research shows that the pro-Trump, anti-democratic January 6th insurrection (J6) led to a short-term reduction in Republican support for President Trump. However, it remains unclear why the anti-Trump backlash occurred among his electoral base. We theorize that white Republicans concerned about the declining status of Anglo whites in the American ethno-racial hierarchy were the least likely to backlash against Trump after J6. Leveraging an unexpected-event-during-survey design (UESD) and a large survey fielded shortly before and after J6, we find no difference in support for Trump due to J6 among white Republicans who strongly perceived anti-white discrimination (Study 1). We replicate this result with another UESD with a separate survey fielded during J6 (Study 2) and a difference-in-differences approach with additional panel surveys fielded around J6 (Study 3). Moreover, across four cross-sectional surveys, we find the negative relationship between J6 disapproval and Trump support post-J6 between 2021 and 2024 is attenuated among status-threatened white Republicans (Studies 4–7). Our evidence suggests racial status threat undercuts the ability of the white Republican mass public to hold co-partisan anti-democratic elites accountable for norm violations.

The January 6th insurrection at the U.S. capital was an eye-opening moment for many Americans. With the 2024 election cycle in swing, members of the Democratic Party are using January 6th as a rallying call for the need to protect democracy. But were the events of January 6th viewed equally among liberals? We argue that the events of January 6th resonate for a particular demographic well-informed liberal White voters. We argue that liberal minority voters will feel the racial undertones of January 6th more than White liberals. Furthermore, we examine how voters of different races viewed the events of January 6th and how views on race relations impact their perceptions of January 6th. We find that White liberals are less angry about race relations in the aftermath of January 6th, and while they viewed January 6th as an insurrection and blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress for their role, they are less likely to say that racism and White Supremacy motivated the insurrectionists. This paper indicates that race plays a key role in political perceptions, even among those who hold similar political ideologies.

This paper examines the impact of demographic change on political perceptions, specifically attitudes toward the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Utilizing data from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, we explore how changes in county-level nonwhite populations influence whether individuals label the event as a protest or an insurrection. Our findings reveal a curvilinear relationship: respondents in counties with moderate increases in nonwhite populations are more likely to view the event as an insurrection, while those in counties with substantial increases tend to see it as a protest. This pattern holds across racial groups but is primarily driven by respondents who did not vote for President Trump. The study shows the broader implications of demographic shifts on political stability and social cohesion, highlighting how changes in racial and ethnic composition shape interpretations of major political events. These insights are crucial for understanding voter behavior and political messaging in the 2024 presidential election.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio—the former Afro-Latino leader of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group—positioned himself as a prominent leader of the January 6 insurrection. Our current understanding of Latine politics, and ethnoracial politics more broadly, would call this a striking paradox. Tarrio’s views highlight that Latines’ view of their place in the ethnoracial hierarchy can vary. We argue that an understudied phenomenon, aspirational status, particularly on ethno-cultural and socioeconomic dimensions, can help us understand variation in Latines’ attitudes and behaviors. While some Latines may adopt a minoritized status and align themselves closer to ethnoracial minorities, others may align themselves closer to whites. We explore how these forms of aspirational status, as well as racial resentment, impact Latines’ political attitudes toward the January 6 insurrection. Using the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), we find that Latines who aspire to a higher ethno-cultural status that approximates whiteness, as well as those who aspire to a higher socioeconomic status and who distance themselves from Black Americans, are more likely to be supportive of the insurrection. This paper contributes to the overall understanding of the heterogeneity of Latine political attitudes and illustrates the role of status in shaping political attitudes among Latines.

The January 6th insurrection and its aftermath of obfuscation and denial were ostensibly racialized events. Under the guise of election fraud, white supremacists, white nationalists, and paramilitary groups attempted to overthrow established democratic procedures to retain a president who stoked racial antagonisms and racial divisions. African Americans, like many American citizens, watched in fear, anxiety, and foreboding as the groups most committed to their repression violently attacked and ransacked the Capitol.

We examine the extent to which the January 6th insurrection and its aftermath of denial and obfuscation influence African Americans’ racial resentment. Our results show how the racialized January 6th events were connected to heightened African American racial resentment. The most compelling result confirms that African Americans’ racial resentment stems from beliefs about justice and fairness.

While the majority of 2021 Capitol insurrection participants were white men, the media prominently highlighted the involvement of male conservative activists of color. However, we still know little about the perspectives of men in the general public regarding this event in our nation’s history, particularly across racial/ethnic and other identity groups. This project examines the influence of racialized anger and racial efficacy on self-identified male views toward the 2021 Capitol insurrection across racial/ethnic groups. We utilize the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), which was the only national, post-election dataset to yield responses on the Capitol insurrection across a large number of identity groups like men of color. Using the CMPS, we hypothesize that the level of racialized anger and racial efficacy will impact attitudes toward the 2021 Capitol insurrection for men across racial groups comparing men of color and their white male counterparts. We find racial anger has a negative effect on political attitudes about the 2021 Capitol insurrection across all groups of men, while racial efficacy has varied effects on certain men of color groups in comparison to white men. This paper underscores the importance of intersectionality in the study of public opinion formation and the effect of political attitudes like racial efficacy and racialized anger on non-traditional political engagement.

Donald Trump has run for president three times with a distinct slogan of “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), endorsing an agenda that advocates for a return to traditional values, renewed support for gender hierarchies, and the exclusion of outsiders. This agenda has received widespread support from Americans mostly along party lines, but partisanship reflects only the tip of the iceberg. Going beyond party, we focus on the existing cross-pressures and intersections between race and gender to demonstrate the importance of attitudes supporting right-wing authoritarianism in explaining how Americans perceive the MAGA agenda. In contrast to the notion that women—characterized as primarily Democrats and supporters of peaceful activism—are less supportive of the MAGA agenda, our analyses demonstrate that white women do not meet this expectation. Utilizing a race-gendered intersectional methodology and data from the 2023 University of Notre Dame Attitudes Toward Democracy Survey (NDATD), we illustrate the nuances of right-wing authoritarianism as a political ideology that works differently across race-gender intersections in driving support for the MAGA agenda. Variation within gender by race, and in complementary fashion within race by gender, reveals crucial insight into the varied reactions within the electorate. Doing so challenges monolithic narratives of women voters and voters of color and highlights the advantages of an intersectional approach to analyzing contemporary politics.

When do survey respondents choose to withhold feelings on questions related to polarizing and democratically important events such as the January 6th insurrection? While extant research has shown that “don’t know” responses or skipped questions in survey research function as a way to avoid expressing a socially undesirable opinion or feeling, no work has explored how nonresponses may be impacting our understanding of the American public’s support for the January 6th insurrection. Through analysis of the nonresponse answers within the 2022 Health of Democracy Survey, we show that a persistent pattern of item nonresponse was present among all racial groups asked to provide their feelings toward insurrectionists, and that women were significantly more likely to refuse sharing their feelings—warm or cold. Additionally, we find that although racialized feelings previously linked with support of the insurrection (racial resentment, racial affect, and white replacement theory) were not significantly related to January 6th item nonresponse, racial attitudes did hold an important relationship with January 6th item nonresponse among Non-Whites. Our results therefore highlight the importance of the intersection of race and gender in conversations about democratic norms, racial attitudes, and withholding views about highly politicized and polarizing events.