The long shadow of the big lie: How beliefs about the legitimacy of the 2020 election spill over onto future elections
Data files
Apr 05, 2024 version files 25.51 MB
Abstract
Has the “big lie”—the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump—shaped citizens’ views of the legitimacy of other U.S. elections? We argue that it has. Those who believe Trump’s claim, whom we call election skeptics, lack confidence in elections for two inter-related reasons. First, because they think 2020 was inaccurately and unfairly conducted, they think that other elections will suffer a similar fate, and hence think these elections are illegitimate even before any votes are cast. Second, while all voters think elections are less legitimate when their preferred candidate loses, this effect will be especially large for election skeptics, because voter fraud gives them a mechanism to explain their candidates’ loss. Using an original panel dataset spanning the 2020 and 2022 elections, we show strong support for these hypotheses. This has important implications for our elections, and their legitimacy, moving forward.
README: The Long Shadow of The Big Lie: How Beliefs about the Legitimacy of the 2020 Election Spill Over onto Future Elections
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.08kprr590
This file contains the codebooks, data, and R scripts necessary to replicate the results of "The Long Shadow of the Big Lie."
Description of the data and file structure
Data are sorted by Figure and Table. Each has its respective Codebook.docx, .sav & .csv data files, and _Replication.R scripts.
R and the haven package are both open-source and will allow all researchers the ability to replicate the analyses without losing variable labels and other data information in the .sav files. The .csv files are direct conversions, but lack some meta data that may be helpful with replication.
NAs in the original variables represent panelists who did not participate in that wave of the panel. Codes 997 - 999 represent Not Sure, Don't Know, or Skipped Items. 997-998 are often recoded to NAs in the recoded variables, as noted in the R scripts.
Descriptions of the study, pre-analysis plan, and additional analyses can be found in the supplement.
Code/Software
All analyses were conducted using R version 4.2.1 (2022-06-23) -- "Funny-Looking Kid"
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit)