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Illiberal attitudes among US state legislative candidates

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We examine the prevalence of illiberal attitudes among aspiring state legislative candidates in the United States. While extensive research has questioned underlying levels of support for liberal democratic principles among the general public in the United States, we are the first to document the extent to which illiberal attitudes are present among the rising class of political leadership in the United States. We find that while the support for democratic principles is relatively high, there are substantial portions of candidates willing to encourage undemocratic behaviors in some areas. We also see some notable differences between candidates of the two major parties. Specifically, while Republicans are substantially more likely to agree that it is sometimes necessary to challenge election results when they lose, Democrats are more tolerant of restrictions—both from government and employers—on extreme viewpoints. Overall, our findings suggest that support for many democratic principles are high, but certain components of democracy may not be well sustained by those who aspire to elected office.
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ARTICLE
Illiberal attitudes among US state legislative
candidates
Michael Barber1, Hans J. G. Hassell 2& Michael G. Miller3
We examine the prevalence of illiberal attitudes among aspiring state legislative candidates in
the United States. While extensive research has questioned underlying levels of support for
liberal democratic principles among the general public in the United States, we are the rst to
document the extent to which illiberal attitudes are present among the rising class of political
leadership in the United States. We nd that while the support for democratic principles is
relatively high, there are substantial portions of candidates willing to encourage undemocratic
behaviors in some areas. We also see some notable differences between candidates of the
two major parties. Specically, while Republicans are substantially more likely to agree that it
is sometimes necessary to challenge election results when they lose, Democrats are more
tolerant of restrictionsboth from government and employerson extreme viewpoints.
Overall, our ndings suggest that support for many democratic principles are high, but certain
components of democracy may not be well sustained by those who aspire to elected ofce.
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03529-w OPEN
1Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA. 2Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA. 3Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA .
email: mbarber@byu.edu
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Introduction
Following Donald J. Trumps victory in the 2016 presidential
election, academic assessments of the health of American
democracy became more common (e.g. Finkel et al. 2020;
Flavin and Shufeldt 2022; Ginsburg and Huq 2019; Grumbach
2022; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018; Mettler and Lieberman 2020;
Slater 2022; Waldner and Lust 2018). In this vein, a growing body
of research has described illiberal attitudes and behaviors among
the mass public (e.g. Arceneaux and Truex 2023; Berlinski et al.
2023; Broockman et al. 2023; Cassese 2021; Chong et al. 2022;
Graham and Svolik, 2020; Kalmoe and Mason 2022; Kingzette
et al. 2021; Krishnarajan 2023; Malka and Costello 2023; Mar-
therus et al. 2021; Mernyk et al. 2022; Nichols 2021). These
include, but are not limited to, hostility towards members of
opposing political parties, acceptance or justication of politically
motivated violence, support for limitations on civil liberties, and
mistrust of electoral institutions and outcomes. This work has
often found that while a majority of Americans report nominal
support for democracy, this support is weaker and not as robust
as many might hope (e.g., Drutman et al. 2018; Graham and
Svolik 2020; Malka and Costello 2023). Moreover, assessments of
the quality and value of democracy in the mass public have grown
highly politicized and polarized (Carey et al. 2019; Flavin and
Shufeldt 2022; Graham and Svolik 2020; Simonovits et al. 2022).
These ndings are especially salient given the events sur-
rounding Trumps subsequent loss in the 2020 election. One goal
of the violent attempt to obstruct the election certication at the
U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was to convince Vice President
Mike Pence and Members of Congress to overturn the election
results. Presumably then, some of the attackers believed that at
least some public ofcials shared their willingness to seek extra-
constitutional remedies to their election loss. This belief might be
seen as understandable in context: At that time, Trumps efforts
to overturn the 2020 election were tolerated (if not supported) by
many elected ofcials, including Members of Congress and state
legislators. These efforts included convening false slates of elec-
tors in seven states (Feuer and Benner 2023; Fischler and Shutt
2023), attempts by elected ofcials in several others to obstruct
vote certication (Homans 2020; Miller et al. 2020; Van Voris
2020; White 2020), and a sustained pressure campaign by Pre-
sident Trump and allies (including some federal employees) to
convince state ofcials to overturn the election results (Brumback
2023; Hendrickson 2023). These efforts were ultimately unsuc-
cessful, but they serve as an important reminder that the illiberal
views of public ofcials can pose a substantial threat to democ-
racyperhaps an even more signicant one than violent protest.
To understand how illiberalism might shape American politics
in the future, it is therefore critical to understand the degree to
which these attitudes persist among not only people who hold
public ofce, but those who aspire to do so. By examining views
of candidates for these positions as opposed to limiting our
inquiry to ofceholders, we obtain a more complete picture of the
extent to which American politicians hold views that support
democratic backslidingand the conditions under which they
might emerge. The attitudes of state legislative candidates provide
particular insights into the likelihood that future anti-democratic
efforts will gain more traction in at least two ways. First, state
legislators hold considerable power over elections in their state; if
they win ofce, legislative candidates are likely to be on the front
lines of future battles that directly shape the health (and even
survival) of American democracy. Second, the state legislature is a
natural stepping stone to higher ofce, including state executive
positions and Congress. Studying state legislative candidates
attitudes therefore provides an important window into how
future efforts to erode democratic norms and institutions may
unfold at all levels of American government.
Our study utilizes a large-scale survey of candidates for
American state legislatures. Some existing work on other topics
has surveyed state legislative candidates in general elections across
some or all states (Abbe and Herrnson 2003; Broockman and
Skovron 2018; Francia and Herrnson 2003,2004; Herrnson et al.
2007; Hogan 2002; Miller 2013), but existing surveys of state
legislative candidates in primary elections have generally sampled
candidates in single states (Niven, 2006). In 2022, we elded what
is to our knowledge the only survey ever conducted of nearly
every Democratic and Republican candidate who ran for state
legislative ofce (including primary candidates and those who ran
unopposed) in the United States during a single election cycle.
The 2022 election cycle was the rst opportunity for people who
may have been inuenced by the 2020 election to run for these
ofces. Our survey was designed to assess the prevalence of
illiberal attitudes among these candidates and to determine what
factors correlate with these views. The inclusion of primary
candidates captures the full spectrum of aspiring legislators,
which is critical to assessing the illiberal positions of citizens who
are seeking to make policy as well as regulatory and oversight
power in future elections.
Our ndings show both reasons for optimism and concern.
First, we nd that overwhelming majorities of aspirants for state
legislative ofce reject politically motivated violence as a means to
power. Despite this, there are a small minority that are accepting
of violent protest and intimidation. Moreover, our results indicate
that Republican state legislative candidates are more inclined than
Democrats to agree that election results should be challenged, and
are also more likely to believe that some people should not vote.
Relative to Republicans however, Democrats advocate greater
censorship and government monitoring of political speech. These
results suggest that illiberalism is not a single-party phenomenon.
Moreover, our work indicates that illiberal views are not limited
to candidates on the fringes of political viability. Thus, although
large majorities of candidates support democratic principles, our
work nds potential cracks in support of democracy among those
who aspire to political leadership.
Methods
We elded a national, online survey of state legislative candidates
during the 2022 United States primary elections. We identied all
candidates (including uncontested incumbents) in Democratic
and Republican primaries running for seats in each states lower
and upper legislative chambers.
1
We specically focus on state
legislative candidates because many aspects of the democratic
processincluding regulation and certication of local, state, and
federal electionsare controlled there (Grumbach 2022). More-
over, democratic decline at the hands of public ofcials is most
likely to happen when the public is inattentive to government
actions, and most individuals have little knowledge about the
actions of state government and state ofcials (Hogan 2008;
Rogers 2017).
To implement our survey of state legislative candidates, we
solicited all candidates whose email address we could obtain to
participate in an online survey. Some stateselection agencies
provide email addresses for registered candidates; in those cases
we scraped all available email addresses from state records. More
typically, states do not provide this information, and in those
instances we searched campaign, party, and social media websites
for candidate contact information. We obtained email addresses
for 12,272 of the 13,583 candidates in the sampling frame
(90.3%). Wherever possible we attempted to locate a personal
email address for the candidate, as opposed to a staffer or a
general information address. We also employed a screening lter
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intended to ensure that the survey was completed only by the
candidate themselves, and not someone else afliated with the
campaign.
2
States determine the date of their primary election. In 2022, the
earliest primary elections occurred in March, with subsequent
primary elections held on dates through early September. Our
goal was to invite candidates immediately after their states pri-
mary, when their electoral experience would be fresh in their
minds but when their time was relatively less constrained. Given
the extended nature of the primary calendar, it was therefore
impractical to solicit all candidates at once. Instead, we sent initial
email invitations on a rolling basis, soliciting candidates within
48 hours of the completion of their states primary election. We
sent up to two additional solicitations to candidates who did not
respond to initial invitations.
We received responses from 1,173 candidates, for an overall
response rate of (9.6%). Notably, response rates for the 5,366
Democrats and 6533 Republicans were similar (9.97% and 9.06%,
respectively). This overall response rate is well in line with
response rates of other similar surveys of state legislative candi-
dates, minor political ofcials, and other comparable political
elites (e.g. Broockman and Skovron 2018; Butler and Dynes 2016;
Doherty et al. 2022; Dynes et al. 2023; Hassell 2021; Miller 2013).
More details are in the online supplementary materials where we
provide state-by-state response rates as well as a discussion of
potential non-response bias.
The survey instrument solicited information about candidates
that could not be readily obtained from public records, such as
demographic information and issue attitudes. We then asked
candidates three question batteries that probed their support of
various components of a liberal democracy (Dahl 2005): Their
support of electoral democracy, their tolerance of politically
motivated violence, and their views on restricting civil liberties.
Full question text for these questions and the full survey instru-
ment can be found in the supplementary material.
Results
Below, we provide descriptive results from all three of these
batteries separately for Democrats and Republicans. We then
provide multivariate regression analyses to determine what can-
didate traits and/or attitudes correlate with illiberal views among
American state legislative candidates.
Electoral democracy. We asked candidates ve questions related
to the electoral process, including respecting the outcome of
elections and whether or not politicians and the public should
challenge the results of elections when they or their party are
deemed the loser. We include these items as a measure of the
potential for elected ofcials to embrace democratic backsliding
because other work has highlighted the necessity of democracy
having elected ofcials selected in elections in which coercion is
comparatively uncommon(Dahl 2005, 188) Thus, the unwill-
ingness to accept election results or the inclination to manipulate
the election process represents a departure from the democratic
process. Figure 1shows these results.
A majority of candidates in both parties felt that it is
important to respect the outcome of elections, even when my
party loses.More than 90% of Democrats agreed or strongly
agreed with the statement, compared to 73% of Republicans.
Similarly, about 12% of Republicans disagreed or strongly
disagreed with that statementa rate more than twice that of
Democrats. On balance however, while we see clear differences
between how Democrats and Republicans engaged with that
statement, the results from that question show relatively high
levels of support for respecting election outcomes across parties.
Further questions on respect for electoral outcomes show that
there is, perhaps, less rm support for respecting traditional
democratic norms among American candidates than we might
hope. This is true among candidates of both parties, but is
especially so among Republicans. For instance, 27% of Democrats
indicate that they agree to some extent that politicians have a
responsibility to challenge election results when they lose.
When factoring the 31% of Republicans who neither agreed nor
disagreed with this statement, only a minority (43%) of
Republican candidates disagreed with this statement. Extrapolat-
ing from our sampling frame, this implies that more than 2,000
candidates who ran for state legislative ofce in 2022 agree that
election results should be challenged when their party loses.
We see similar results for the question about whether the
people should challenge election results even if the ofcial
certication deems their party the loser.Note that this question
shifts the focus of election challenges from politicians to the
people. While only 5% of Democrats agreed with the statement,
27% of Republicans did. As before, we also see a much higher rate
of Republicans on the fence: 29% of Republicans neither agreed
nor disagreed with the premise of the people challenging election
results, compared to only 9% of Democrats. As with the idea of
politicians challenging results, a minority of Republicans 44%
disagreed that the people should object to election outcomes, even
when results are certied. As before, these results equate to
thousands of candidates in the United States who felt that election
results should be challenged even if the ofcial certication
determines their partys candidate to have lost.
We also included questions in this battery that asked about
changing electoral rules and suffrage, given the recent wave of
laws put forward by state legislators altering the rules governing
ballot access and voting procedures (Grumbach, 2022). When it
comes to their views on whether their party should change
election rules to help itself in the future, we see that the response
pattern among Democratic candidates largely mirrors that of
Republicans. Majorities from both parties (65%) disagreed or
strongly disagreed with the notion of changing election rules.
However, in both parties, sizeable minorities (around 35% for
both Democrats and Republicans) were either noncommittal or
were open to the possibility of changing electoral rules to benet
their partiesfuture electoral prospects.
When thinking about whether the country would be better off
if certain people did not vote (potentially as a result of changes to
electoral procedures, but also more generally), we see signicant
differences across the parties. While 79% of Democrats disagreed
with this statement, only a slim majority of Republicans (55%)
did. And, while only 7% of Democrats agreed or strongly agreed
that the country would be better off if some people failed to turn
out, a quarter of Republicans (26%) felt this way.
Overall, our results indicate that a sizable minority of
candidates are willing to set aside the basic norms of electoral
democracy if they lose. Moreover, these results also provide
evidence of clear partisan differences. Republican candidates are
much more likely than Democrats to feel that challenging election
results is acceptable, and that certain people should not vote.
Thus, our results suggest that Democrats in our sample were
more supportive of electoral norms (such as accepting election
results) than Republicans in the 2022 election.
Political violence. We also asked questions about the willingness
of state legislative candidate to embrace Political Violence as
another way of testing democratic backsliding and the respect for
the democratic process (Dahl 2005). The responses from the
Political Violence Battery, as shown in Fig. 2, indicate that solid
majorities of candidates in both parties reject political violence,
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particularly when described as part of the partisan political pro-
cess. For instance, more than 90% of candidates from both parties
strongly disagreed that it is sometimes justied for my party to
use violence in advancing their political goals.This sentiment
was similarly strong when candidates were asked specically
about the outcome of the 2022 elections.
We see slightly fewer candidates strongly disagreeing that it is
acceptable to send threatening or intimidating messages to the
other partys leaders (82% for Democrats and 81% for Repub-
licans). However, when combining the candidates who merely
disagree (as opposed to strongly disagreeing), 94% of Democratic
candidates and 89% of Republican candidates disagree with this
action as well.
The clear outlier is the statement, If elected leaders will not
protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it
requires taking violent actions.Here, 87% of Democrats either
strongly disagree (77%) or disagree (10%). Just 6% of Democrats
agree or strongly agree, while 7% are undecided. In contrast,
nearly one-fth of Republicans (19%) either strongly agree or
agree, and the same percentage are undecided. Just 62% of
Republicans disagree with the premise of people taking violent
action to protect America.Republicans therefore appear to be
more likely to believe that violence is an acceptable means of mass
political action if they feel the country is threatened.
Civil liberties. Finally, we consider how candidates view
restrictions on civil liberties such as free speech, freedom of the
press, and the freedom to assemble. These components are also
critical components of a democratic society. As Dahl (2005, 189)
notes, the right of citizens to express themselves...on political
matters broadly dened,and the right of citizens to associa-
tional autonomyare core democratic institutions. Thus the
rejection of these institutions represent a willingness to embrace
democratic backsliding. The results of our Civil Liberties Battery
are depicted in Fig. 3. In these questions we nd Democratic
candidates more willing to endorse punishment for political
speech and government monitoring of political views. While
majorities in both parties disagree that companies should re
employees who post the other partys extreme views on social
media,there is more support for this course of action among
Democratic candidates than Republicans: 54% of Democratic
candidates disagreed to some extent with this statement, com-
pared to 76% of Republicans.
The other question where we nd substantial partisan differences
is whether the government should monitor people who post the
other partys extreme views online.Here, 39% of Democrats agreed
with this statement while only 10% of Republicans did. Likewise,
nearly three times as many Republicans strongly disagreed with this
statement as did Democratic candidates.
Fig. 1 Descriptive results for electoral democracy question battery, by candidate party. Response categories with less than 5% support are shown in the
gure but without corresponding text for legibility.
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On the other hand, a large majority of Republican state
legislative candidates either agreed or strongly agreed that
there are too many extreme speakers of the other party invited
to speak on college campuses todaywhile only 27% of
Democrats agreed with this statement. However, 51% of
Democrats and 23% of Republicans neither agree nor disagree
with this statement, indicating a large amount of ambivalence
in both parties.
In the remaining two questions we see a quite a low willingness
among candidates in both parties to limit political speech in
newspapers, even when it favors a candidates opponents or is
critical of their own side.
Regression analyses. In this section, we consider whether or not
certain attributes and attitudes are associated with more illiberal
beliefs among state legislative candidates. To do so, we compile a
dataset of additional covariates for each candidate who responded
to our survey. Our intent is to test whether these additional
factors are associated with beliefs about liberal democracy. These
covariates fall into one of three categories:
Demographic Factors: We measure the gender, race,
education, age, and religious afliation of each candidate.
In studies of the public, many of these demographic factors
have been shown to be associated with views of democracy
and political violence (Kalmoe and Mason 2022).
Electoral Factors: These variables measure different aspects
of a candidates electoral experience and are intended to
capture the degree to which the experience that a candidate
has running for ofce might impact their views of the
democratic process more generally. A candidate who loses,
for example, might come away from the experience with a
more negative view of elections and democracy more
generally than a candidate who won the primary election.
We also measure the distance between the candidates
primary vote share and the vote threshold necessary to
advance from the primary to the general election (distance
to advancement). Positive values indicate electoral perfor-
mance beyond the necessary vote threshold while negative
numbers indicate the gap in vote share needed to advance
to the general election. We also include the party of the
legislator and measure whether or not the candidate ran as
the incumbent in the primary election.
Candidate Quality: To capture features of candidate
experience and quality we include variables measuring
whether the candidate has prior electoral experience (that is,
Fig. 2 Descriptive results for political violence battery, by candidate party. Response categories with less than 5% support are shown in the gure but
without corresponding text for legibility.
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they have been previously elected to some public ofce),
and the share of the total donations raised by the candidate
in the primary election. These variables are intended to
identify whether the illiberal attitudes we study are held
only among fringe candidates or are common among all
candidates, regardless of experience or electoral viability.
We include each of these factors as independent variables in a
series of regression models. The dependent variables in these models
are additive scales from each of the question batteries discussed above.
In each case we sum each respondents answers to questions in each
battery with higher values indicating more illiberal views and lower
values indicating more liberal views. We then rescale the indices to
run from 0 to 1 and use them as the dependent variables in three
linear regression models. The results of those models are displayed in
Table 1below. Additional models with state-level xed effects and
models testing differences among competitive states that are more
likely to be pivotal in the 2024 presidential election appear in the
supplemental materials.
We begin by considering those variables that have a consistent
relationship with illiberal attitudes across the three different
models. First, consistent with recent work that had found
education to be an important determinant of political views
and behavior (Barber and Pope 2023; Igielnik et al. 2021; Pew
Research Center 2018), in all three regression models, individuals
with more education are less likely to espouse illiberal attitudes.
We also nd a strong relationship between illiberal attitudes and
partisanship in each of the three indices of illiberal attitudes.
However, the direction of that association is different depending
on the index we consider. In the indices measuring views of
electoral democracy and political violence, Republicans are more
likely to hold illiberal attitudes than Democrats. The magnitude
of the coefcient in the model measuring views of electoral
democracy is especially large (0.125, p< 0.01), given that the
dependent variable runs between 0 and 1, and the R2of that
model is also much higher than in the other regressions. In fact, a
model in which the electoral democracy dependent variable is
regressed on only a partisanship dummy variables has an R2of
0.21. It is noteworthy that this index is composed of questions
regarding challenging election results, changing electoral rules,
respecting the outcome of elections and access to the franchise
things all heavily emphasized by Donald Trump in the months
surrounding the 2020 election.
In the nal regression model, which examines candidates
views on restricting and monitoring political speech, Republicans
are less likely to espouse illiberal views than Democrats. This
reversal of the sign of the coefcients (compared to the rst and
second models in Table 1) is noteworthy as these models measure
Fig. 3 Descriptive results for civil liberties battery, by candidate party. Response categories with less than 5% support are shown in the gure but
without corresponding text for legibility.
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attitudes regarding government censoring of speech, monitoring
of individualsonline activity, and punishment for politically
extreme views.
Turning now to the rest of the variables included in the model,
we consider those factors that are not associated with illiberal views.
Amongthedemographicvariables,wedonotnd any consistent
relationship for gender, race, age, or religiositythough we do nd
that men are more willing to restrict civil liberties than women, all
else equal. Looking at electoral factors, we do not nd a relationship
between illiberal attitudes and winning the primary election (i.e.
there is no sore losereffect), or how close a candidate came to
winning the primary election. Incumbency and nancial factors are
not strongly associated with candidate attitudes, either. Prior elected
experience is only related to being less likely to endorse political
violence, but it is not correlated with support for electoral
democracy or free speech. Overall, our results do not provide
evidence that illiberal views are merely viewpoints held by
candidates on the political fringes. The lack of a signicant
relationship between these measures of candidate viability and
holding illiberal views suggests instead that illiberal attitudes are
spread throughout all types of candidates, both long-shot candidates
and those more likely to win.
Discussion
Overall, our survey paints a concerning picture with regards to
the democratic attitudes of candidates for ofce. On the one
hand, an overwhelming share of both parties reject politically
motivated violencethough it is of course concerning that even
small minorities of both parties are accepting of violent protest
and threats of intimidation.
On the other hand, our results reveal that along with candi-
dateseducation level, party is a consistent predictor of the extent
to which they harbor illiberal views. Republicans are more willing
to agree that election results should be contested by losing can-
didates or by the public, and are also more likely to agree that
certain people should not vote. Given these patterns, it comes as
no surprise that when we regress the Electoral Democracy index
on party, we nd large effects: Republicans hold decidedly more
illiberal views than Democrats when it comes to the conduct of
elections. Though the relationship is less strong when we examine
willingness to engage in political violence, we see that Republicans
are more illiberal in that area as well.
Republicans do not hold a monopoly on illiberal views, however.
We nd that Democrats are less supportive of unrestricted civil lib-
erties. We therefore see unsettling signs among candidates of both
parties for the continued health of liberal democracy in America.
While our survey reveals that candidates of both parties show
some illiberal tendencies, we nd it especially concerning that a
large share of Republican state legislative candidates express
support for the types of actions that occurred in President
Trumps efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, and
that these candidates appear ready to support similar behaviors in
2024.
3
Our results shed new light on the threats to democratic
norms from within the political system, and show that while there
Table 1 Predictors of Illiberal Attitudes.
Electoral Democracy [0-1] Political Violence [0-1] Free Speech [0-1]
(1) (2) (3)
Male [0/1] 0.004 0.002 0.033***
(0.010) (0.007) (0.012)
Other Race [0/1] 0.035** 0.025 0.006
(0.017) (0.018) (0.019)
Black [0/1] 0.011 0.021*0.052*
(0.029) (0.012) (0.030)
Hispanic [0/1] 0.024 0.007 0.075**
(0.027) (0.018) (0.036)
Education [1-5] 0.013*** 0.012*** 0.015***
(0.005) (0.004) (0.005)
Age [18-80] 0.001** 0.0002 0.0003
(0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003)
Born Again [0/1] 0.022 0.005 0.013
(0.016) (0.010) (0.015)
Religiosity [1-5] 0.004 0.001 0.002
(0.004) (0.003) (0.004)
Republican [0/1] 0.125*** 0.028*** 0.026**
(0.013) (0.009) (0.013)
Won Primary [0/1] 0.045*0.004 0.002
(0.024) (0.017) (0.020)
Dist. to Advancement [-1-1] 0.029** 0.002 0.010
(0.015) (0.015) (0.014)
Incumbent [0/1] 0.019 0.005 0.003
(0.021) (0.015) (0.023)
Prior Experience [0/1] 0.015 0.021** 0.011
(0.016) (0.010) (0.014)
Fraction of Money [0-1] 0.028 0.018 0.023
(0.018) (0.019) (0.014)
(Intercept) 0.362*** 0.333*** 0.545***
(0.027) (0.031) (0.030)
Obs. 723 727 710
R-Squared 0.28 0.07 0.05
*p< 0.1; **p< 0.05; ***p< 0.01. Standard errors, clustered by state, are shown below regression coefcients.
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is room for optimism in the beliefs of candidates for elected ofce,
there are also areas of troubling disregard for the enduring suc-
cess of democracy in America.
Data availability
Upon publication of this article, all data used in the article and
code used to produce all results will be made freely and publicly
available through the Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.
7910/DVN/JCM7OC.
Received: 6 March 2024; Accepted: 24 July 2024;
Notes
1 The obvious exception is Nebraska, which has a unicameral, non-partisan legislature.
In Nebraska, we emailed all candidates that had qualied for the primary ballot
regardless of party. Respondents were asked their partisan identity in order to identify
co-partisans and out-party partisans for the purposes of the survey questions.
2 Unsurprisingly, given the low prole nature of most state legislative campaign, only 25
total responses were ltered out because they were initially responded to by an
individual who was not the candidate. Two of these campaigns reached out to have the
survey resent to be completed by the candidate.
3 As of the writing of this paper, Donald Trump appears to be the clear favorite to be the
Republican presidential nominee in 2024.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Riley Callahan, Nicki Camberg, Madeline Breeden, and
Emma Sherman-Hawver for their research assistance. This research was approved by the
IRB at Barnard College, Columbia University (Approval Number 2021-1120-055).
Author contributions
All authors contributed equally to all parts of the research, including the design of the
survey instrument, collection of data, analysis of data, and the writing of the results.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical approval
This research was approved by the IRB at Barnard College, Columbia University
(Approval Number 2021-1120-055). All research was performed in accordance with
relevant guidelines and regulations as outlined in the IRB application and in accordance
with the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Code of Pro-
fessional Ethics and Practices.
Informed consent
All survey subjects were asked their informed consent before any data collection
took place. Prior to answering any questions, respondents were presented with the
following information: Informed Consent You are being asked to participate in a
national study of state legislative candidates. This survey is part of a research study
conducted by researchers at Barnard College, Brigham Young University, and
Florida State University. We are non-partisan researchers conducting a study of both
partiescandidates, funded exclusively by our non-prot institutions. We will not
use our results for political purposes. The goal of this survey is to learn more about
American political campaigns, candidates, and elections, but we will not ask you to
discuss proprietary information or tactics. We will ask you some questions about
yourself, your views on issues of the day, and why you decided to run for ofce. We
know your time is valuable. To help compensate you for your participation, we are
offering a benet to survey participants in the form of a summary report containing
some ndings of this survey, to be emailed to you (if you so choose) after we have
completed the study. This document will allow you to gain a sense of aggregate
demographics and opinions among Democratic and Republican state legislative
candidates. There are no known risks associated with this study beyond those
associated with everyday life. Your participation in this online survey involves risks
similar to a persons everyday use of the Internet, and there are no known risks
associated with this study beyond those associated with everyday life in your
capacity as a candidate. We hope that our results will add to the knowledge about
how American elections are conducted. Findings from this study may be reported in
scholarly journals, at academic seminars, and at research association meetings. The
data will be stored at a secured location and retained indenitely. Condentiality will
be maintained to the degree permitted by the technology used. No identifying
information about you will be made public and any views you express will be kept
completely condential. Your participation is voluntary. Even if you decide to
participate, you are free not to answer any question or to withdraw from partici-
pation at any time without penalty. If you have any questions about the research, you
can contact Professor Michael G. Miller at mgmiller@barnard.edu. This study has
been approved by Barnard Colleges Institutional Review Board (IRB). If you have
any questions about your rights as a research participant or concerns about the
conduct of this study, you may contact the Barnard College IRB chairs at irb@-
barnard.edu. () I understand the risks of this study as described above. I understand
that I may opt into receiving a summary of some of the studysndings, and that I
may also opt into a rafe for an iPad Mini, but that winning that rafeisnot
guaranteed. I understand that my participation is voluntary and I may withdraw at
any time. I agree to participate. () I do not agree to participate.
Additional information
Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material
available at https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03529-w.
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