Prof. Pippa Norris
McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard University. A well-known author of around 50 books, she is the world’s 2nd most cited political scientist, according to Google Scholar, and a fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Twitter: @PippaN15
Email: Pippa_Norris@Harvard.edu
U.S. Election 2024
1. Trump’s imagined reality is America’s new reality (Prof Sarah Oates)
2. Trump’s threat to American democracy (Prof Pippa Norris)
3. Why does Donald Trump tell so many lies? (Prof Geoff Beattie)
4. Strategic (in)civility in the campaign and beyond (Dr Emily Sydnor)
5. Can America’s democratic institutions hold? (Prof Rita Kirk)
6. How broad is presidential immunity in the United States? (Dr Jennifer L. Selin)
7. Election fraud myths require activation: Evidence from a natural experiment (Dr David E. Silva)
8. What ever happened to baby Q? (Harrison J. LeJeune)
9. We’re all playing Elon Musk’s game now (Dr Adrienne L. Massanari)
10. Peak woke? The end of identity politics? (Prof Timothy J. Lynch)
11. Teaching the 2024 election (Dr Whitney Phillips)
A perfect storm of contemporary events has triggered deep angst about American democracy. Long-standing concern was exacerbated in the run-up to the 2024 US election by the Republican party’s choice of President, Donald J. Trump, as their standard bearer despite his prior record of flouting democratic norms, culminating in the insurrection of January 6th. Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign warned about Donald Trump’s illiberal rhetoric. MAGA rallies stoked racial resentment, partisan polarization, and grievance politics. Harris emphasized his authoritarian threats of violent retribution, his pledge to use the Justice Department against opponents, and his sweeping proposals to reshape foreign and domestic policies, like throwing out millions of illegal immigrants living in America. In the aftermath of polling day, Democrat anxieties rose as they realized the scope of Trump’s victory – boosting his 2020 share of the vote as most counties swung rightwards coast-to-coast and expanding the Republican coalition, especially among the younger generation (+6%), first-time voters, and a majority of Hispanic/Latino men (+18%), the highest share won by the Republican presidential candidate for half a century. During the Fall, Harris enjoyed an initial surge in support. In the final week, however, late deciders broke for Trump, despite his increasingly erratic rally performances.
The outcome reinforced a long-standing legitimacy crisis in the United States; in Pew Research Center polls, in recent years, both Republicans and Democrats have expressed concern about electoral integrity, deep dissatisfaction with the state of American democracy, and fears about the future. Many American citizens in these surveys are deeply critical of their political system. They consider constant partisan warfare as dysfunctional and divisive, the political process dominated by lobbyists and cash, and all branches of the federal government as deeply untrustworthy. Anxieties have been heightened by contemporary events highlighting home-grown threats, ranging from the January 6th MAGA insurrection storming Capitol Hill to attempted assassinations against Trump and rising threats of violence against electoral officials, widespread allegations of rigged contests and voter suppression, hyper-partisan courts, and legislative gridlock. Certain serious threats diminished in the immediate aftermath of the sweeping Republican victory in the 2024 election, however, notably rightwing legal challenges to the integrity of elections and the genuine risks of post-election violence. Nevertheless, the longer-term risks of democratic backsliding have risen exponentially, given the lack of checks on the aggrandizement of Presidential power after Republicans gained control of the White House, the Senate, and (likely) the House of Representatives, and 27 State Houses to the Democrats 17. The 6-3 conservative balance in the Supreme Court favors Trump and the justices have also granted presidents substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts.
At the same time, the two most extensive election surveys currently available demonstrated widespread public awareness of the risks to American democracy. The pooled network exit poll (where Edison Research interviewed almost 23,000 electors) found that nearly three-quarters of all electors thought that U.S. democracy was “somewhat” or “very” threatened. The exit poll reported that 35% said democracy was the most important issue influencing their vote, including 81% of Harris and 17% of Trump supporters. Democracy was more salient than other issues, including the economy (31%), abortion (14%), immigration (11%), or foreign policy (4%). Similarly, the Associated Press VoteCast poll (where NORC interviewed over 110,000 voters from 28 Oct-5 Nov 2024) also found that two-thirds of Harris and one-third of Trump voters said that the future of American democracy was the single most important factor influencing their vote. Liberal and moderate Democrats expressed most concern about the future of American democracy, but roughly four out of ten Independents and Republicans also shared this anxiety. Many Americans, therefore, seem aware of the dangers facing liberal democracy.
Yet Trump won. Why? One reason is that other issues like inflation were also clearly important. ‘Democracy’ is also an essentially contested abstract concept. Pew Research Center polls highlight that Republicans and Democrats sharply disagree about the nature and severity of the dangers facing U.S. democracy– and less consensus exists about proposed fixes. Debates over policy issues have metastasized into politicized tussles over legitimate procedural changes to resolve disputes. This is exemplified on the conservative right by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for politicizing the state and by numerous Republican attempts to adopt more restrictive state laws regulating electoral registration, balloting, and tabulation. By contrast, many on the liberal left advocate a range of reforms, including expanding deliberative assemblies and participatory budgeting to expand citizen decision-making, abolishing the Electoral College, adopting Ranked Choice Voting, and limiting judicial tenure for the Supreme Court.
During his first term in office, President Trump corroded important democratic norms and constitutional principles. Still, his bark usually proved far worse than his bite. Many checks and balances on the executive continued to function due to Democratic control of the Senate in the 117th Congress, push-back from the lower courts, many legacy news media outlets, and civil society resistance, as well as the lack of capacity of the Trump Administration to implement its policies. The V-Dem project estimates a modest decline in American liberal democracy during his first term- but then some signs of resilience during the Biden years. All the signs suggest, however, that the prospects for severe backsliding during a second term of the Trump Administration look far more likely.