President on Honeymoon: Elections, Media, and the Winner–Loser Gap in Affective Polarization

Abstract Affective polarization has risen to concerning levels in the United States, and elections are among the events that most intensify it. Yet how election outcomes reshape partisan affect and whether they do so differently for winners and losers has only recently drawn scholarly attention. Using the pre- and post-election panels of the American National Election Studies for the seven presidential elections between 2000 and 2024, I measure the within-respondent change in affective polarization toward the presidential candidates and compare winners with losers. Winners become more affectively polarized after the vote, while losers become less so. Rather than reflecting embittered losers, this gap is driven by a presidential ''honeymoon'': both sides come to rate the newly or re-elected president more warmly, even as feelings toward the losing candidate scarcely move. The gap is concentrated among heavy consumers of traditional news but not among social-media users, and a three-election panel shows that the honeymoon is short-lived. Consistent with an emerging winner--loser literature, these findings suggest that elections open brief windows in which partisans grow more tolerant of the opposing side.