Many Trump Supporters Will Question a Close Harris Victory—Making Another Jan. 6 a Distinct Possibility, Our Survey Finds
They buy some version of the Great Replacement Theory and believe that elites are selling them out
Dear Readers:
One reason no one—or very few—saw the Donald Trump phenomenon coming was that we had not been systematically monitoring the appeal of populist figures and ideologies in the American public. In Europe, with its multi-party system, such ideologies are easier to track in real time because they can form their own party and one can measure how many votes they obtain.
Still, in two-party America, there were signs of rising extremism: The soaring ratings of right-wing radio and TV talk show hosts, many of them airing nativist sentiment and spinning conspiracy theories; the growth of the Tea Party movement; and the increasing disenchantment in parts of red America with hoity-toity establishment elites that Sarah Palin’s brief stardom represented. But no one put it all together in time to warn that, if left unaddressed, populist forces might fundamentally transform the American political landscape.
That is a gap that The UnPopulist’s parent organization, the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, is taking a major step toward filling. With the generous support of the Institute for Humane Studies, ISMA’s Director of Survey Research, Tom Shull, this August designed and administered a first-of-its-kind, major, national poll specifically tracking the appeal of populism in America. Building on ISMA’s pilot survey last fall, Shull, who is also this publication’s editor-at-large, developed a complex and rigorous model that plumbs every dimension of the populist phenomenon: The longing for a strongman figure; the disdain for elites; the contempt for parliamentary checks on presidential power; and the dislike of social outgroups.
Today, we present to you our first set of findings about the prevalence of populist attitudes among Trump’s supporters and discuss what they might mean for the peaceful transfer of power in the event of a close result in the upcoming presidential election. The short answer? Be worried.
In subsequent essays, we’ll report our findings on supporters of Kamala Harris and RFK Jr.
For a closer look at what Trump supporters are thinking and might do, read Shull’s immensely important—and original—report.
Shikha Dalmia
Editor-in-Chief
Polls show the outcome of the presidential race is likely to be close. If that proves true, the result will almost certainly be contested. Legal challenges to the election process are already underway. The inevitable question, then, is whether America will experience another spasm of violence like Jan. 6, with its threat to Congress and the peaceful transfer of power.
The results of an extensive survey of populist attitudes conducted in August by The UnPopulist’s parent organization, the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, found a segment of populist supporters of President Donald Trump who approved of the protest on Jan. 6, 2021, considered the prospect of a Kamala Harris presidency as a crisis to democracy, and anticipated a historically corrupt election in 2024—a combination of concerns that could well motivate them, based on their reasoning about the event, to engage in another Jan.6-style protest.
Some nonpopulist Trump supporters express the same acute concerns about a Harris victory, and even those who don’t may well feel skeptical about it. Trump supporters generally hold very negative views of America’s political elites and of at least one other social group, particularly undocumented immigrants, whom they often believe these elites favor. Many even endorse some version of the Great Replacement Theory, holding that immigration puts Republicans or white Americans at risk.
We will focus on Trump’s supporters and his populist base in this essay, discussing who they are and their responses to our survey. We’ll turn to populism among Harris and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporters in subsequent essays.
Capturing America’s Populist Moment
The precise definition of populism is contested in the academic literature, but for the purposes of our survey, we defined populists as those who exhibited any three of the following four attitudes:
Feel an unusually direct connection with a political leader or, alternatively, with his or her agenda while believing this leader understands them and will defend their interests like no other candidate.
Seem willing to let their candidate as president override institutional checks on state power to achieve the movement’s goals.
See themselves as harmed or ignored by powerful elites—often government elites—who corruptly act against their interests.
Perceive themselves as losing ground to disliked groups, such as immigrants, whom the elites favor or refuse to check and whom the populists don’t see—unlike themselves—as “real” or “true” members of the nation.
The combination of these views, if left unchecked, tends to facilitate an autocracy by eroding constraints on government power.
Our 52-question survey was constructed around the definition of populism above and fielded to a representative sample of 1,000 U.S. respondents by the online research data group YouGov. Our questions aimed to be politically neutral, so that we could detect populism on either the right or the left. Importantly, the survey, the first major poll of its kind in the United States, will establish a baseline to track populist trends in the future.
Based on our findings, we estimate that populists constitute approximately 36% of the supporters of President Donald Trump, 29% of the (then-) supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and 15% of the supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Who Are the Trump Populists?
Although Trump populists, as noted above, constitute a little more than a third of Trump’s supporters, they are about 14% of America’s adult population—roughly the same size as the African American population.
Demographically, just like Trump’s overall supporters, Trump populists also tend to be:
Older: Those 18 to 44 years of age comprised 51% of non-Trump supporters and of nonpopulist Trump supporters, but only 23% of Trump populists. Nearly two-thirds of Trump populists were 55 or older, while just above one-third of other respondents had reached 55. Hence, a sizable contingent of Trump populists belongs to the Baby Boom generation—a famously restive generation that came of age in an era of protests and social division.
Whiter: 87% were white, with just 3% Black and 4% Hispanic, compared to 74%, 8% and 9% of Trump nonpopulists, respectively, and 60%, 17% and 13% of non-Trump supporters, respectively.
More Protestant and Roman Catholic: 71%, compared to 51% of other respondents. About 36% identified as “born again,” slightly above the 31% of other respondents.
Slightly more low-income: For instance, 38% had an annual income below $50,000, compared to 35% of other respondents.
Slightly more “working class”: 72% did not have a four-year college degree, compared to 66% of other respondents.
More likely to be married: 56%, compared to 44% of everyone else.
One interesting finding, given that populism is typically a “male” phenomenon, was that Trump populists had roughly the same gender breakdown as the rest of the population: 51% female and 49% male.
As for their beliefs, they tended to be:
More conservative: 75% self-identified as conservative or very conservative, compared to just 21% of the others taking the survey.
More patriotic: 84% said they were very or extremely proud to be an American, compared to 63% of other respondents.
Connection with Trump and Handing Him More Unchecked Power
To detect signs of populism, one of the attitudes we searched for in the survey was the feeling of a strong, even personal, connection with their candidate or his or her goals. Another involved respondents’ willingness to let their candidate override institutional constraints on executive power if elected president.
To test how respondents felt about granting their candidate such power, we asked two sets of questions. One looked at how much more willing people might be to let their candidate, as opposed to a generic president of their preferred party, use executive orders to circumvent their political opponents in Congress. Another set asked whether they trusted their candidate “as president to decide when to follow the law and when to ignore it to achieve justice” when the opposing party had already misused federal power for partisan purposes.
On this count, there was little difference between Trump and Harris supporters. A 63% majority of Trump supporters approved at least one of these dubious uses of executive power, a percentage point less than Harris supporters (64%). (The overall level of support was higher than—but otherwise consistent with—the findings of our November pilot survey, in which majorities of Trump’s supporters (51%) and President Joe Biden’s supporters (53%) approved this misuse of executive authority.
Clear differences emerged, however, when we measured the degree of respondents’ connection with their candidate. We asked the survey takers to pick their primary reason for supporting the candidate and looked for those who:
Said they felt a “personal connection” with him or her, or …
Supported his or her policy agenda and …
Strongly agreed that he or she was the only recent politician who understood people like them, and …
Strongly agreed that he or she was the only recent politician who would actually fight for people like them.
From these questions, we estimated that 22% of Trump supporters exhibited signs of a populist connection with the candidate, compared to just 6% of Harris and Kennedy supporters alike. (The figure for Trump supporters was essentially unchanged from the 21% who showed signs of this attitude last November.)
Trusted Leader, Distrusted Elites
Populist movements are characterized by not only a strong trust in a leader, but by a strong distrust of society’s elites. We found that Trump supporters exhibited a greater level of skepticism than other respondents toward America’s governing elites—both its national elected officials and its unelected officials in the federal bureaucracy. Overall, 76% of Trump supporters agreed with the harsh statement, “America’s political elites among its national elected officials have often harmed the interests of Americans like me in pursuit of their own selfish interests,” while 70% agreed with a similar statement about bureaucratic elites (see table below). In both cases, 43% of Trump supporters strongly agreed, and strong agreement was our standard for signs of an anti-elitist populist attitude.
Trump supporters were also more negative than other Americans when it came to cultural elites. Some 69% of Trump supporters, compared to 48% of other Americans, said that cultural elites in the media had harmed them in pursuit of their own selfish interests, with 47% of Trump supporters strongly agreeing. Similarly, 67% of Trump supporters had a harsh assessment of cultural elites in universities and entertainment, compared to 39% of other Americans. In fact, Trump supporters were more likely to strongly agree with the harms caused by “selfish” cultural elites than they were even with federal elites in the “swamp.”
Conversely, Trump supporters were less skeptical than other Americans toward religious elites in Christian churches (31% vs. 59%, respectively) and toward business elites in finance and industry (63% vs. 71%). Still, a strong majority of Trump supporters disapproved of the business elites’ actions.
In all, 61% of Trump supporters showed signs of the second populist attitude by strongly agreeing that at least one of these various elites had selfishly harmed people like them.
‘Social Outgroups’ and Their Elite Enablers
Populism often combines a distrust of powerful elites with a dislike of a “social outgroup.” Populists see the elites as letting this group enjoy special advantages or privileges at their expense even though, unlike the populists, it is not a “real” part of the nation.
To explore this dynamic, something we hadn’t done fully in our pilot survey, we presented the respondents with 12 societal groups segmented by: race and ethnicity (whites, Blacks, and Hispanics), religion (Muslims, Jews, and Evangelical Christians), gender (men and women), sexual identity (transgender people and gays and lesbians), and immigration status (legal and undocumented immigrants). We then asked people their general feelings about each group: positive, negative, or neither.
Respondents who expressed negative feelings toward the group were further asked whether they:
Agreed or disagreed that “government elites permit [the group] to have special advantages at the expense of people like you.”
Agreed or disagreed that people in this group “can’t be true members of the national community”—a generic rephrasing of their not being “real” or “true Americans.”
Negative views of a group on all three questions suggested that the respondent considered them an “outgroup,” indicating signs of populist views on this count. About 54% of Trump supporters qualified for this attitude with at least one group.
Although we did not find a large difference in negativity between Trump and Harris supporters toward Blacks, Hispanics and Jews, Trump supporters were roughly 10 times as likely to view as an outgroup transgender people (19.2% vs. 1.5%), Muslims (15.2% vs. 1.4%), and gays and lesbians (10.6% vs. 1.2%).
But the group most frequently seen as a social outgroup among Trump supporters was illegal immigrants (a description we reluctantly embraced to ensure a clearer distinction with “legal immigrants”). Fully 48%—nearly 10 times the percentage of Harris supporters—saw this group as an outgroup.
Trump populists had strong opinions about undocumented immigration. Ninety-eight percent (98%) of them agreed or strongly agreed that U.S. political leaders had “intentionally failed to reduce undocumented immigration because they want more immigrants in the country.”
Moreover, they seemed to embrace the reasons offered in the Great Replacement Theory for this failure. There are two versions of this theory, one soft and one strong. The soft version holds that Democratic Party politicians allow undocumented immigration because they think immigrants will vote for them and help them win elections. About 89%—nine in 10—Trump populists believed this. The strong version holds that U.S. political leaders want undocumented immigrants in the country to replace the culture and political power of white Americans. Nearly half (49%) of Trump populists believed this.
In addition, a sizable 45% minority of Trump populists agreed with yet another distrustful explanation (though non-GRT)—that U.S. political leaders wanted undocumented immigrants to provide “cheap foreign labor to drive down business costs and workers’ wages.”
Although support for this theory wasn’t as high among Trump’s non-populist supporters, it was still high. About 50% bought the soft version that Democrats were trying to import voters to win elections, 23% believed the strong version that this was an intentional effort to diminish the power of the native white population and 27% believed that this was meant to drive down native wages and help business.
Should We Fear Another Jan. 6? Short Answer: Yes
The support in Trump’s base for the Great Replacement Theory shows just how suspicious his supporters have become of America’s elites. But this cynicism extends to America’s core institutions, including its elections.
As mentioned above, we estimate that Trump populists constitute about 14% of U.S. adults, and of those Trump populists:
74% believe Biden was illegitimately declared president.
89% regard Harris as a definite threat to democracy if elected.
74% agreed that the 2024 election will decide whether America will continue to be a democracy.
50%, more than twice the percentage of all other respondents, believe that the 2024 election “will be the most corrupt election in the history of our country”—by implication, even more corrupt than the 2020 election that sparked the Jan. 6 march on the Capitol.
So how did Trump populists feel about the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol?
A 38% plurality of Trump populists approved of the protestors’ actions that day. When that plurality was asked why, 46% said, “Protests like this are important whenever there’s a question about the results of a close presidential election, even if they disrupt Congress.” The other 54% said, “The protest on Jan. 6, 2021, properly disrupted Congress because the 2020 presidential election was a very unusual case.”
Consider those answers. Among the Trump populists who think the Jan. 6 protest makes sense whenever there’s a question about a close election, over half also believe the 2024 election will be the most corrupt in history. Given that the election looks likely to be very close, those Trump populists—about 9% of all Trump populists—appear primed to see a Jan.6-style protest as important, even if it disrupts Congress.
The other Trump populists who approved of the Jan. 6 protestors, in contrast, said it was acceptable because the 2020 election presented a very unusual case. But nearly half of them also believe this will be the most corrupt election in history, and vast majorities of them see Kamala Harris as a definite threat to American democracy if elected and believe this election will determine whether the U.S. continues as a democracy. The Trump populists who believe all three of those things—8% of all Trump populists—likewise seem primed to see the 2024 election as a “very unusual case” that would “properly” disrupt Congress in the case of a close election.
Hence, about 17% of Trump populists seem very likely to have grounds for considering a similar protest to be legitimate if Harris is declared the victor in November. They represent about 2.5% of American adults—millions of people who, as populists, feel a strong connection to their candidate’s cause and a strong desire to see him prevail and gain power. And of course, a similar “crisis logic” could lead other Trump supporters who aren’t populists, but who nevertheless approved of the Jan. 6 protest, to consider a protest like that to be appropriate this year.
Ultimately, only a small fraction of these partisans would have to actually travel to the Capitol to represent an imposing crowd. On the whole, it is probably well that Congress will now be receiving extra protection when certifying the next election on Jan. 6, 2025.
Of course, we believe that understanding populist sentiments will help us to do more than anticipate an outlier problem like a Jan. 6 protest. More fundamentally, a significant segment of Americans is becoming impatient with the constraints, mechanisms and procedures of liberal democracy, driving a crisis of legitimacy in American institutions.
Defusing that deep frustration will take more than a quadrennial increase in the number of police stationed at the Capitol.
© The UnPopulist, 2024
Former POTUS Trump's supporters will not "question" the 2024 election results.
Mr. Trump's supporters will not "accept" the election results, unless Trump wins.
The only outcome 20% of voters will accept is Trump 45. They do not care if the election is fair, foreign governments interfere or algorithms program voters like robots.
That there will probably be a violent reaction to a Harris win is a given. But I believe since Trump will not have a physical presence in the White House and DC generally the violence will be dispersed across many states in smaller, less focused and more manageable groups. I see the swing states that might give Harris the win as a focus of challenges and potential violence.
Once he loses I see state Republican officials less inclined to take a phone call from the Ex-POTUS than they were when he called them in 2020 while he was in office. Also Trump himself should also understand that the Supreme Court is highly unlikely to extend any immunity they have created for him this year to extend to the election of 2024 and therefore no protection from future prosecution.
In fact anything he does to encourage his followers to act he comes closer to potential prosecution under a whole slew of actual federal statutes.
The real test will be what Republicans do if they have majorities in the House and Senate. Do they want to let it all slide by since Trump will be not running in 2028? Or will they choose to participate in a shadow government operating out of Mar-a-Lago where Trump, out of power, will still call the shots to assure the survival of MAGA for the next 4 years? Trump has already commanded that the Senate eliminate the filibuster. McConnell didn't follow through but what will his MAGAfied successor do?
If Harris wins we can be confident that the House will continue its persecution of everything she does and anyone who is in the administration. She will be forced to govern entirely by veto and executive orders which the SCOTUS will invariably, and often reasonably, unconstitutional.
Ironically, for the short term peace of the nation, it would be best for Trump to win the popular vote and not just through Electoral College nullification.
The research presented here is simply a confirmation of everything we already suspected. There is nothing conservative about these people they are just reactionaries. One of the pillars of conservatism is a suspicion of things that are merely popular or tending to group think and the hive mind.
We "out-group" conservatives actually question mob tendencies even when they are coming from the right side of the political spectrum. Perhaps more so because they are nihilistically corrupting true conservative principles.