The Confidence Earthquake: Seismic Shifts in Trust and Reform Sentiments in the 2020 Election

Using data from a variety of public opinion sources, we explore changes in trust in the vote count. A historic gap in confidence between Democrats and Republicans has grown, caused by two reasons: (1) an unusually big increase in Democratic confidence coupled with a modest decrease in Republican confidence and (2) a pre-election trust gap that already placed Democrats more confident than Republicans. Looking at confidence that votes in one’s state were counted as intended, there is a sharp discontinuity in Republican responses at the 50% point in Trump two-party vote share. In addition, Republicans in states Trump lost were much less confident when more votes were cast by mail.