Contingent Democrats: Electoral Accountability and Democratic Commitments in an Electoral Autocracy

How do voters interpret electoral outcomes and reassess democracy when elections take place in electoral autocracies? We examine these questions using a preregistered two-wave panel of 1,157 respondents surrounding Hungary's 2026 election, which ended Viktor Orbán's sixteen-year rule. We find asymmetric patterns of electoral accountability: opposition supporters attribute defeat partly to their own parties' shortcomings but primarily explain victory through incumbent failures, while incumbent supporters largely deflect responsibility for defeat. Consistent with the winner-loser gap, victorious opposition supporters evaluate democratic quality and electoral integrity more positively, while defeated incumbent supporters become more skeptical. Electoral turnover also reshapes support for democratic constraints. Incumbent supporters become more supportive of several constraints after defeat, while exploratory analyses suggest that opposition supporters with initially strong democratic commitments become somewhat more tolerant of institutional restrictions after victory. These findings suggest that voters' interpretations of electoral outcomes and support for democratic institutions may depend partly on their relationship to political power.