{"id":506702,"date":"2021-12-22T08:38:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T13:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=506702"},"modified":"2022-01-05T15:12:04","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T20:12:04","slug":"one-year-on-republicans-still-dont-consider-biden-the-rightful-winner-506702","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/one-year-on-republicans-still-dont-consider-biden-the-rightful-winner-506702\/","title":{"rendered":"One year on, Republicans still don\u2019t consider Biden the rightful winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latest Bright Line Watch survey traces ongoing weakening of US democracy.<\/h2>\n
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Read the full report<\/h2>\n

Read Bright Line Watch\u2019s latest (November 2021) survey, \u201cTempered expectations and hardened divisions a year into the Biden presidency.\u201d<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

A year later, a large majority of Republican voters still refuses to acknowledge that President Biden won the 2020 election, which doesn\u2019t bode well for US democracy. The most recent Bright Line Watch survey<\/a> finds that just 27 percent of Republicans believe Biden is the rightful presidential winner, compared to 94 percent of Democrats.<\/p>\n

Bright Line Watch<\/a>, a nonpartisan watchdog group of leading political scientists who monitor US democratic practices, was cofounded by\u00a0Gretchen Helmke<\/a>, a professor of political science at the\u00a0Ä¢¹½´«Ã½<\/a>, and her colleagues at the\u00a0University of Chicago<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Dartmouth College<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>The watchdog group started regular surveys about the health of US democracy in February 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a democracy to survive, parties must be willing to lose elections and politicians must be willing to acknowledge when they have lost,\u201d warns Helmke. \u201cThe fact that the Republican Party is unwilling to acknowledge the 2020 loss fundamentally undermines the most basic principle of our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

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In the News<\/h2>\n

Based on the latest Bright Line Watch report, The Washington Post<\/em> writes that a \u201cnew survey provides little comfort about democracy\u2019s future\u201d<\/a> while the Los Angeles Times<\/em> notes that \u201cRepublicans\u2019 belief in Trump\u2019s \u2018Big Lie\u2019 holds steady as confidence in US elections dips.\u201d<\/a> Bloomberg cites the report as evidence the US democracy faces real threats.<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

The group\u2019s latest survey finds that voters\u2019 confidence in next year\u2019s midterm elections has already been affected: only 62 percent of Americans said they were \u201cvery\u201d or \u201csomewhat confident\u201d that votes nationwide would be counted correctly. Divisions along partisan lines have notably deepened. While 80 percent of Democrats generally expressed confidence in fair elections, only 42 percent of Republicans felt that way.<\/p>\n

Among the key findings<\/strong><\/h3>\n