Motivated reasoning: Election integrity beliefs, outcome acceptance, and polarization before, during, and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election required voters to not only form opinions of leading candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but also to make judgments about the integrity of the election itself and what—if anything—to do about it. However, partisan motivated reasoning theory (Leeper and Slothuus, Political Psychology, 35(Suppl 1): 129–156; Lodge and Taber, The rationalizing voter, Cambridge University Press, 2013) suggests judgments are often strongly influenced toward affectively desirable conclusions. Before, during, and after election projections were announced, partisan supporters of Trump and Biden rated: judgments about voter fraud and foreign interference, their acceptance of the results, and their support for recourse against the outcome (e.g., legal challenges, legislative overhauls, violence). Before the election, partisans were mildly concerned about election integrity but willing to accept the outcome without recourse. However, during vote counting, and especially after Biden was projected to be the winner, partisans dramatically changed their judgments in opposite directions, consistent with the affectively desirable conclusions relevant to each group. Biden supporters affirmed the election’s integrity and accepted the results whereas Trump supporters disputed the integrity, rejected the results, and began to support recourse against the outcome. Data are consistent with partisan motivated reasoning. Discussion highlights the practical implications. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11031-022-09983-w.