Partisan polarization and public perception of electoral legitimacy: Quantitative evidence from the 2020 US Presidential Election

Democracy is predicated on the general consensus that election results are legitimate and widely accepted by citizens. However, the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election witnessed a historic and unprecedented challenge to this legitimacy, with millions of Americans continuing to dispute the outcome despite clear institutional validation. This research note investigates the factors that most strongly predict the belief that Donald Trump won the presidency legitimately using multivariate modeling and original survey data from the nationally representative American National Election Studies Survey’s (ANES) 2024 data. Even after controlling for political interests, political knowledge, and a variety of demographic factors, the findings show that partisan identity and candidate preference by far remain the most powerful predictors of belief in Trump’s victory. With significant implications for the well-being of electoral democracy, these findings offer quantitative support for the idea that partisan identity and elite cues play significantly influences how people perceive democratic legitimacy.