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Pushed and Pulled: How Attitudes About Race and Immigration are Settling and Shifting After Trump

June 25, 2024
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ABOUT DEMOCRACY FUND
Created by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, Democracy Fund is an independent and nonpartisan foundation that confronts deep-rooted challenges in American democracy while defending against new threats. Democracy Fund has invested more than $275 million in support of those working to strengthen our democracy through the pursuit of a vibrant and diverse public square, free and fair elections, effective and accountable government, and a just and inclusive society. For more information, please visit www.democracyfund.org.

ABOUT THE VOTER SURVEY
The Views of the Electorate Research (VOTER) Survey is a longitudinal survey that Democracy Fund has conducted in partnership with YouGov since December 2016. This report is based on data that include the latest wave of the VOTER Survey, which surveyed 6,000 adults (age 18 and up) online from February 22 to March 15, 2024. The VOTER Survey is distinct because it draws from a longstanding panel of voters who have been interviewed periodically since it was launched by YouGov in December 2011, including after the 2012, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections, with thousands of respondents repeatedly participating since 2011.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
John Sides is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He studies political behavior in American and comparative politics. He is an author of The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy as well as books on the 2012 and 2016 elections.

Michael Tesler is a professor of political science at University of California Irvine. He is author of Post-Racial or Most Racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era, coauthor of Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America, and coauthor of Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America.

Robert Griffin is the Associate Director of Research at Democracy Fund. Prior, Griffin was the Research Director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, the Associate Director of Research at the Public Religion Research Institute and the Director of Quantitative Analysis at the Center for American Progress.

 

Main Takeaways

  • Between 2011 and 2020 there was dramatic shift in attitudes on racial inequality and discrimination as well as immigration. The attitudes of Democrats and independents became notably more liberal during this period.
  • Since 2020, attitudes on racial inequality and discrimination have been relatively stable. Any changes mostly reflect modest declines in liberal attitudes among Democrats and modest increases in these attitudes among Republicans. The parties are a bit less polarized in 2024 than in 2020.
  • The initial changes in attitudes about racial inequality and discrimination resulted from Trump’s polarizing presidency and the salience of racial justice issues, especially after George Floyd’s murder. The trends since 2021 stem from declining media attention to racial justice issues and thus less priority on these issues among voters. Polling also shows that Biden is a less racially polarizing figure than Trump.
  • On immigration, there has been a rightward shift in both parties and especially among Republicans. This reflects the increasing media attention to immigration and the public salience of the issue, particularly for Republicans. Moreover, the bipartisan elite consensus on the need for more border security has helped produce parallel shifts among Republican and Democrats.
  • Taken together, these trends suggest that race and immigration might have a new “thermostatic” dynamic, with attitudes shifting in the opposite direction of the party in the White House.

 

Introduction

As president, Donald Trump’s political agenda and rhetoric often centered on polarizing ideas about civil rights, crime, and immigration. He referred to immigrants coming from “shithole countries,” defended Confederate statues, and pursued controversial policies such as separating immigrant children from their families when they were detained crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

When Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he seemed poised to change the subject. His agenda was more centered on other priorities, such as the economic recovery from the pandemic. But Biden also inherited party coalitions that increasingly differ in their views of racial equality, immigration, and related issues. He talked about these issues very early in his presidency and reversed some of Trump’s policies.1 However, his desire to chart a different course on immigration faced significant challenges, as record numbers of immigrants entered the U.S. from Mexico. In a January 2024 statement, he called the situation at the border “broken.”2

In this report, we investigate how Americans’ attitudes about race and immigration evolved over Trump’s presidency and in the first three years of Biden’s term. We draw on several different surveys, but especially the Democracy Fund VOTER Survey (Views of the Electorate Research Survey), which has interviewed a sample of Americans multiple times since late 2011, augmenting that sample with new respondents along the way. The most recent survey is from March 2024. Together, the VOTER Survey and other surveys help us identify trends in these attitudes.

We find that views of racial inequality and discrimination changed dramatically under Trump, with Democrats in particular becoming more likely to take the “liberal” view, which attributes racial inequality to structural forces as opposed to individuals’ own failings. After Trump’s departure, those attitudes have remained relatively stable. There have been very modest declines in liberal attitudes among Democrats and an even more modest increase in liberal attitudes among Republicans. Other surveys and survey questions show a similar pattern. Thus, Democratic and Republican attitudes have converged slightly after several years of divergence.

We argue that the trends from 2016 to 2020 reflect the polarizing effect of Trump, particularly in driving Democrats to the left, combined with the renewed salience of racial justice issues after the murder of George Floyd. Beginning in the fall of 2020, racial justice issues faded from the news as the protests abated. As of 2024, voters see these issues as less important than they did four years ago. Moreover, Biden has emerged as a president who is less polarizing on these issues. These factors may have helped create this slight convergence between the parties.

The story of immigration attitudes is different. There was the same leftward shift under Trump, again mostly among Democrats. But under Biden, several measures of these attitudes show a rightward shift — with less support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and more support for decreasing immigration, deporting undocumented immigrants, and building a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Some of these measures show roughly similar shifts among Democrats and Republicans, and others show a much larger shift among Republicans.

We attribute these trends to two factors. One is the increase in border crossings and the resulting increase in the salience of the issue. Immigration has become more important in news coverage and in voters’ minds even as racial equality has become less important. The other is, once again, the elite leadership of public opinion. In particular, under Biden there has been some degree of elite bipartisan consensus on the need for increased border security, which may have helped move both Democratic and Republican voters in a conservative direction.

Taken together, these trends in opinions and their likely causes complicate the common narrative that the country experienced a “Great Awokening” followed by a decline from what commentators have called “peak wokeness.” The likelier story — and the more probable future for American politics — is that issues like race and immigration have become “thermostatic,” with public opinion moving against the president’s rhetoric, priorities, and policies. Thus, we should expect opinions about these issues to shift in different ideological directions in response to events, policy, and elite rhetoric, rather than rising to a single liberal peak and then falling.

The reason to expect thermostatic politics is that the two parties continue to differ on why racial inequality arises, whether racial discrimination is a problem, and how to approach both legal and undocumented immigration. Democrats and Republicans are still significantly more polarized than they were before Trump became president. Thus, we should expect Democratic and Republican administrations to govern differently on these issues, pushing policy in their preferred direction, even as some Americans move in the opposite direction.

Views of Racial Inequality and Discrimination

To measure views of racial inequality and discrimination, we focus on three main topics. The first is how citizens explain racial inequalities involving Black Americans, and specifically whether they attribute it more to structural forces or to the individual characteristics of Black people. The second is how much discrimination citizens believe that different racial and ethnic groups face. The third is how much different racial and ethnic groups are advantaged or disadvantaged because of their race.

These topics that speak to whether Americans even see patterns of racial discrimination and disadvantage to begin with, which groups they believe are most affected, and what they believe creates any disadvantages.

To measure attributions about racial inequality, we draw on a long-standing battery of questions that ask respondents whether they agree or disagree with the following four statements:

  • Over the past few years, Black people have gotten less than they deserve.
  • Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Black people should do the same without any special favors.
  • It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if Black people would only try harder they could be just as well off as white people.
  • Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Black people to work their way out of the lower class.3

As we and others have documented, there were substantial changes in these attitudes between 2011 and 2020, as Democrats and independents became more likely to attribute racial inequality to structural rather than individual-level factors. These trends are almost entirely due to partisans updating their attitudes about race, not to people changing their partisanship.4 Other research has demonstrated that these changes were genuine and not due to survey respondents’ cloaking their real feelings behind socially desirable responses.5

In the 2022 and 2024 VOTER Surveys, overall opinion was similar to what it was after the 2020 election (Figure 1). The number of Americans who disagreed that Black people should overcome prejudice without special favors was 37 percent in the November 2020 survey and 33 percent in March 2024. The fraction of Americans who disagreed that Black people could be just as well off as white people was 45 percent in 2020 and 44 percent in 2024. A similar fraction agreed that generations of discrimination and slavery still prevent Black people from making economic progress, and this fraction also remained relatively stable between 2020 and 2024. There was a small drop in the percentage of Americans who agreed that Black people have gotten less than they deserve — from 45 percent in 2020 to 40 percent in 2024.

Four line graphs illustrate respective responses to four questions about racial inequality by all Americans, Democrats, independents, and Republicans over time. Democrats consistently express the most liberal attitudes, but views began to converge after 2020.

The overall stability in these attitudes conceals a modest partisan convergence. In 2024, a slightly higher percentage of Republicans expressed more liberal attitudes on these indicators, although most Republicans did not. Meanwhile, liberal attitudes became a little bit less prevalent among Democrats. For example, relative to 2020, fewer Democrats in 2024 agreed that Black people have gotten less than they deserve (a drop from 73 percent to 66 percent) and agreed that slavery and discrimination have prevented Black people from making economic progress (a drop from 77 percent to 73 percent).

These changes occurred mainly among white, Latino, and Asian Democrats (Figure 2).6 Notably, even with these recent shifts, Democrats in all major racial and ethnic groups are still more likely than they were 10 years ago to give responses consistent with structural explanations for racial inequality. And on most indicators, white, Latino, and Asian Democrats have attitudes more similar to those of Black Democrats than they did in late 2011.

Democrats of different races over time. Separate lines represent Black, white, Latino, and Asian Democrats. All lines move upward to indicate increases in liberal attitudes during the span between 2012 and 2024. This and some movement in a less liberal direction by some in 2020 have resulted in greater convergence of attitudes on this topic.

The VOTER Survey has also tracked Americans’ perceptions of discrimination over a shorter timespan (2020, 2022, and 2024) — specifically, how much discrimination people believe a given racial or ethnic group is experiencing. Overall, fewer Americans now say that Black and Latino people face high levels of discrimination (Figure 3). The fraction saying that Black people face “a lot” or “a great deal” of discrimination declined from 50 percent in September 2020 to 44 percent in March 2024. In addition, fewer Americans say that Latino people face high levels of discrimination (a shift from 37 percent to 32 percent). By contrast, the number of Americans who said that Asian people face discrimination increased from 23 percent to 31 percent.

Four line graphs illustrate changing responses to the question of how much discrimination there is in the United States against white, Black, Latino, and Asian people, respectively. Separate lines represent respondent groups of all Americans, Democrats, independents and Republicans.

In the first two cases, these drops were driven mainly by shifts among Democrats and independents. Between 2020 and 2024, there was a 12-point drop in the percentage of Democrats who said Black people face high levels of discrimination.7 There was a 4-point drop among independents. If anything, Republicans became slightly more likely to say that Black, Latino, and Asian people faced serious discrimination. As a result, there is less party polarization in perceptions of discrimination against these groups in 2024 than in the two prior surveys.

However, perceptions of discrimination against white people showed a different pattern: There was an increase in perceptions of discrimination — but mostly among Republicans. The fraction of Republicans who said that white people faced high levels of discrimination increased from 23 percent to 39 percent. In contrast to other trends identified in this section, this created more polarization between the parties, not less.

There was also an increase in the percentage of Republicans who appeared to believe that white people face more discrimination than do Black people or Latino people (Figure 4). For example, 29 percent of Republicans said that white people faced more discrimination than Black people in 2020. By 2024, that increased to 44 percent. Fewer Republicans (25 percent) said that Black people experience more discrimination. By comparison, in 2024 the vast majority of Democrats (82 percent) said that Black people experience more discrimination. The trends for beliefs about white and Latino discrimination are nearly identical among all Americans and partisan groups over this time period.

Stacked horizontal bar chart shows responses by all Americans, Democrats, independents and Republicans to the question of whether white or Black people face more discrimination or whether they face equal discrimination. The increase in all Americans saying white people face more discrimination is driven largely by the increase in Republicans expressing this perception.

This fits a general pattern: Democrats tend to believe that historically marginalized groups — such as Black people, women, Jewish people, and Muslim people — experience more discrimination than historically advantaged groups such as white people, men, and Christians. Republicans tend to see these groups as facing similar levels of discrimination or, as the example above illustrates, that the historically advantaged groups actually face more discrimination.8

The VOTER Survey also included several questions relating to perceptions of racial opportunities and advantages. These were asked in 2020, 2022, and 2024. Similar to the trends shown in Figures 1 and 2, there has been stability in these attitudes and signs that attitudes are a bit less liberal than they were two years ago (Table 1).

In 2020 and 2024, the same fraction of Americans (51 percent) said that racial minority groups have mostly fair opportunities to advance. There were some small shifts in other indicators, ranging from 0 to 7 percentage points, with any changes moving in the same direction: Fewer Americans agreed that society systematically advantages white people (54 percent vs. 50 percent) or, phrased differently, that white people enjoy social and economic privileges because of their race (54 percent vs. 50 percent). Americans were also less likely to agree that white people should feel guilty about racial inequality (33 percent vs. 26 percent) or that increased opportunities for Black people have improved the country’s quality of life (63 percent vs. 58 percent).

On several of these questions, the partisan gaps, although still substantial, were slightly smaller in 2024 than in 2020, mirroring the modest convergence evident in Figures 1 and 3. But Democrats and Republicans remain far apart.

Large table shows the percent of agreement with six statements, respectively, about racial opportunity and advantage. Table notes responses in 2020 and 2024, and whether there is a positive or negative percentage point change. Responses are sorted by all Americans, Democrats, independents, and Republicans, as well as white, Black, Latino, and Asian American and Pacific Islander respondents.

Similar findings emerged in the Cooperative Election Study, a different survey that was also conducted in 2020 and 2022 (Table 2). In response to questions about whether white people have an advantage and whether racial problems are rare, there were also small shifts. More often than not, any shifts meant that slightly fewer Americans expressed concern about white advantage or racial problems. There were, likewise, parallel trends among most racial groups and modest convergence between Democrats and Republicans.

At the same time, large differences between Democrats and Republicans remain. For example, in 2022, 84 percent of Democrats but only 20 percent of Republicans agreed that white people had advantages because of the color of their skin.

Large table shows the percent of agreement with five statements, respectively, about racial opportunity and advantage. Table notes responses in 2020 and 2022, and whether there is a positive or negative percentage point change. Responses to two of the statements are grouped by all Americans, Democrats, independents, and Republicans, as well as white, Black, Latino, and Asian American and Pacific Islander respondents. Three of the statements do not feature responses by white or party-specific survey takers.

The Cooperative Election Study also asked three questions only of respondents who did not identify as white. These questions asked about white people’s views of racial discrimination and racial advantages. In both years, majorities or near-majorities of Black, Latino, and Asian-American respondents expressed resentment about white people’s denial of racial discrimination, agreed that white people get away with offenses that Black people cannot, and agreed that white people do not try hard to understand the problems Black people face. Unsurprisingly, these sentiments were particularly prevalent among Black respondents. But, in line with the trends in Table 1, such sentiments were a bit less prevalent in 2022 than 2020 — and this was true among all three of these racial groups.

Changing Messages About Race

What accounts for these trends in attitudes about racial inequality and discrimination? Any answer to this question must help explain both the growing partisan differences under Trump, largely driven by Democratic voters moving in a racially progressive direction, and the modest shifts under Biden’s presidency, which reflect less progressive views among Democratic voters and more progressive views among Republican voters. It is a pattern of rapid partisan divergence followed by a small convergence.

These trends derive from a profound change in the messages that voters heard from political leaders and activists. Between 2015 and 2020, voters encountered Trump’s hostile statements about racial and ethnic minorities as well as a highly visible social movement pushing for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd — a movement that Trump attacked vociferously. But the public presence of this movement faded in late 2020, and Trump then lost to Biden, who has not been as polarizing a figure on issues related to race.

Starting in 2015 during his presidential campaign and then continuing during his presidency, Trump’s rhetoric had the counterintuitive effect of pushing public opinion about racial inequality and discrimination to the left, especially among Democrats. Trump’s positions and statements on race, immigration, and Muslims created an incongruity for Democrats who disliked Trump but were otherwise more moderate or conservative on these issues.9 The easiest way for those Democrats to resolve this incongruity was to shift their positions away from Trump’s — a phenomenon that is common for people who find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having previously supported some of the opposing party’s mostly salient policies.10

And that is precisely what Democrats did. White Americans’ feelings about Trump in 2016 were strongly associated with subsequent changes in their views of racial inequality as well as their feelings about the Black Lives Matter movement and police. In particular, the less favorably white Americans felt toward Trump in 2016, the more their attitudes shifted in a liberal direction between 2016 and 2020.

This divergence between Democrats and Republicans was only magnified during the racial justice protests after George Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020. Initially, Americans of all partisan persuasions shifted toward a more sympathetic view of Black Americans and a less favorable view of the police. But those effects waned as the protests moved out of the news. By early 2021, any impact of these protests was visible mainly among Democrats, pushing them toward a more progressive view. As a result, Democrats and Republicans ended up further apart than they were before the protests.11

This began to change in 2021. Without a prominent mobilization around racial justice, the topics that were frequently in the news after Floyd’s murder — references to Floyd himself, to Black Lives Matter, to racism — never returned to their peak during the summer of 2020 except for a temporary spike when Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted in April 2021 (Figure 5).12

Stacked vertical bar chart illustrates coverage of key racial justice topics by Fox, CNN, and MSNBC each month over a period from 2010 into 2024 with two significant spikes occurring between 2020 and 2022.

Alongside this decline in news attention, fewer voters perceived racial equality and police reform as important issues (Figure 6).13 In the 2024 VOTER Survey, 43 percent of respondents said racial equality was a very important issue, down from 48 percent in 2020. This decrease occurred mostly among Democrats (9-point drop) and independents (3-point drop). The importance of police reform dropped as well.14 In both cases, these declines among Democrats were evident in every major racial and ethnic group.

Three line graphs show changes in the percent of survey respondents who say racial equity, police reform, and immigration, respectively, are important issues. Separate lines represent the responses of all Americans and those who identify as Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

The change brought about by Biden’s victory also shaped the messages voters encountered. With Trump out of office, the backlash against his presidency became less of a factor in public opinion about racial inequality and discrimination than it was back in 2020. This helps to explain why Democratic views have become a little bit less liberal.15

Biden himself has also been a less polarizing figure on these issues. He did not embrace the most progressive positions in his party after Floyd’s murder, rejecting calls to “defund the police.” And although his administration’s policymaking represents a clear departure from Trump’s, Americans do not perceive Biden as favoring one racial group over another to the extent that they did Trump when he was president.

For example, nearly half (49 percent) of respondents in the September 2020 VOTER Survey said that the Trump administration favored white people over Black people. At that point, almost no one said his presidency favored Black people over white people. In the November 2022 VOTER survey, conducted almost two years into Biden’s presidency, just 27 percent of Americans thought Biden favored Black people over white people while 10 percent thought the opposite. Overall, Americans perceived less racial favoritism from Biden than they did from Trump.

More recent polling shows the same difference in perceptions. An October 30–November 3, 2023, CBS News poll asked “If Donald Trump wins in 2024, do you think his policies in a second term would try to put the interests of white people over racial minorities, racial minorities over white people, or treat their interests the same way?” Almost half (48 percent) said “white people over minorities,” and only 3 percent said “racial minorities over white people.” When asked the same question about Biden, 39 percent said “racial minorities over white people” and 18 percent said “white people over racial minorities.”16

Perceptions of racial favoritism are also less polarized by party when Americans think about Biden compared to Trump. When this 2023 CBS News poll asked about Trump, 80 percent of Democrats said he would favor white people, while only 14 percent of Republicans thought that. Almost all Republicans (82 percent) said Trump would treat white people and racial minorities the same way.

When asked about Biden, Democrats and Republicans were divided, but not as starkly. Among Democrats, 67 percent said Biden would treat white people and racial minorities the same way, while 20 percent said he would favor white people and 13% said he would favor racial minorities. Most Republicans (63 percent) said Biden would favor racial minorities but over a third said white people (17 percent) or both groups equally (20 percent).

Thus, Biden’s policymaking and rhetoric on issues related to race have not inspired the same polarized perceptions as Trump’s. This may have helped create the modest partisan convergence in racial attitudes between 2020–24.

Views of Immigration

Trends in attitudes about immigration are similar to trends in attitudes about racial inequality and discrimination in some respects, but there are also important differences. There were increasingly liberal immigration attitudes during the Trump presidency — driven in large part by shifts among Democrats. These attitudes have also shifted in the conservative direction since 2020.

But unlike with attitudes about racial inequality and discrimination, this conservative shift is visible in both parties and especially among Republicans. Thus, the modest partisan convergence in racial attitudes does not necessarily emerge in immigration attitudes: Both parties are moving in the same direction, and the larger shift among Republicans on certain survey questions has created even more polarization.

The VOTER Survey has asked three questions consistently since late 2011: whether to create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, whether undocumented immigrants contribute to society or are a drain on society, and whether it should be easier or harder to immigrate to the U.S. The first two of those questions show trends similar to the trends in attitudes about racial inequality and discrimination: a sharp increase in pro-immigrant views through 2020, particularly among Democrats, and then a smaller decrease in those views between 2020 and 2024 (Figure 7). The question about making it easier or harder to immigrate shows the same increase among Democrats during the Trump administration, but a smaller decrease afterward. Interestingly, the percentage of Republicans who wanted to make it easier to immigrate actually increased by 8 points between 2020 and 2024.

Three line graphs show changes in whether voters favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, see undocumented immigrants as contributors to American society, and want to make it easier to immigrate to the United States, respectively. Separate lines represent the responses of all Americans and those who identify as Democrats, Republicans, independents.

But other survey questions show a somewhat different pattern, with sharper conservative shifts among Republicans than Democrats. This may reflect the fact that Republican attitudes are already quite conservative on the three immigration questions in the VOTER Survey; simply put, there is not much room for them to shift further to the right. On other questions, by contrast, there is more variation within the GOP.

One example has to do with preferred levels of immigration to the U.S. Since 1965, the Gallup polling organization has asked whether people want to increase or decrease immigration to the country or keep it at its present level. Partisan differences on this question emerged gradually beginning in the early 2000s and then accelerated during the Trump administration. Again, this was largely due to a liberal shift among Democrats (Figure 8).17

However, since Biden was inaugurated, there has been a dramatic change in Republican attitudes. The percentage of Republicans who want to decrease immigration rose by 25 percentage points in two years — from 48 percent to 73 percent, as of June 2023 (Figure 8). In the most recent survey, more Republicans wanted to decrease immigration than at any point in Gallup’s polling for the past 60 years. Democrats have shifted in the same direction, but by less.18

A different way of asking about a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants also shows a partisan asymmetry. In surveys by the firm Civiqs since Biden’s election, there has been a 17-point increase in the percentage of Republicans who prefer to “deport immigrants living here illegally” instead of giving them a “path to citizenship.” As of December 2023, 81 percent prefer deportation. Meanwhile, 82 percent of Democrats prefer a path to citizenship when the question is framed that way, which represents a 7-point drop since Election Day 2020.19

Consistent with this increasingly restrictive sentiment toward undocumented immigrants, public support for the U.S.-Mexico border wall has also increased.20

Two area charts show changes in preferences for increasing, maintaining, or decreasing levels of immigration to the United States. Top chart reflects Democrat respondents and bottom chart reflects Republican respondents.

The Evolution of Immigration Politics

We have shown some de-polarization on attitudes about racial inequality and discrimination since 2020 — with Democrats moving a little to the right and Republicans a little to the left — but more polarization on immigration attitudes, with both parties shifting to the right but Republicans shifting further. The differences in these two sets of trends means that underlying factors behind the immigration trends are not exactly the same as those behind trends in attitudes about race.

One common factor is the reaction to Trump’s rhetoric and policymaking. Trump staked out quite conservative positions on these issues during his 2016 campaign and then sought to implement them. His immigration policymaking included efforts to restrict immigration and punish undocumented immigrants, including the infamous program of family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border. Thus, Democratic voters who were initially less liberal on immigration policy shifted to the left for the same reason they did on racial issues: Their aversion to Trump led them to move their attitudes in the opposite direction.

Two things have changed under Biden. First, there has been an increase in media attention to immigration since Biden took office. For example, the number of mentions of the word “border” on major cable news networks has been consistently higher under Biden’s presidency than during Obama’s and Trump’s (Figure 9). This reflects both the increase in border crossings during Biden’s presidency and the agenda of more conservative outlets. Most of the monthly mentions of the border on these cable networks are on Fox News.

Stacked vertical bar chart illustrates coverage about the U.S.-Mexico border by Fox, CNN, and MSNBC each month over a period from 2010 into 2024, with Fox representing the majority of the increase.

These factors have combined to increase the salience of immigration to American voters — particularly Republicans.21 In the 2020 VOTER Survey, 47 percent of Americans said that immigration was “very important.” This increased to 54 percent in 2024 (see Figure 6). Thus, over these four years, fewer Americans saw racial equality as an important issue but more saw immigration as important.

The second change under Biden concerned his policymaking and rhetoric. In some ways, Biden broke with Trump. For example, he canceled Trump’s executive actions that restricted immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries and reversed a Trump policy that cracked down on cities who would not cooperate with federal immigration agents.

At the same time, Democratic and Republican leaders have offered broadly similar messages about the need for more border enforcement. Of course, Republicans have harshly criticized Biden’s handling of immigration and called for a raft of new security measures. Republican politicians, especially Texas Governor Greg Abbott, have pursued their own enforcement policies.

But many Democratic leaders have also expressed concerns about the border. One example is local Democratic leaders in New York City and elsewhere who have faced influxes of immigrants and the need to provide services for them. Biden himself endorsed a bipartisan bill that would have provided for stricter enforcement, although it was ultimately killed by Republicans who seemed unwilling to give the Biden administration a legislative victory in an election year. Biden then pursued action on his own in June 2024, announcing restrictions on immigrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

This combination of events, news coverage, and relative partisan consensus on border security helps explain why Democrats and Republicans have moved toward more conservative positions. With some degree of agreement between prominent Democrats and Republicans, Democratic and Republican voters should trend in the same direction, as they generally have.

However, Republican leaders and the conservative news media have focused more on immigration than Democratic leaders, which may have led to a stronger reaction among Republican voters. In addition to the disproportionate amount of coverage coming from conservative outlets, data on how members of Congress communicate with constituents also show that Republican members mention immigration at a far higher rate than Democratic members do.22

Thus, as Figure 6 shows, the change in the percent of Americans who think that immigration is a “very important” issue is much larger among Republicans — from 58 percent in 2020 to 74 percent in 2024 — than among Democrats (41 percent in 2020 vs. 39 percent in 2024). It is no surprise, then, that Republicans shifted more than Democrats in favor of reducing immigration.

Conclusion

The trends in public opinion about racial inequality, discrimination, and immigration under Trump and Biden are a noteworthy departure. White Americans’ views about racial inequality and discrimination were virtually unchanged under Democratic and Republican presidents alike from 1988 to 2012 — what Christopher DeSante and Candis Watts Smith have described as a time of “racial stasis.”23 Under Trump, however, there were large shifts in attitudes about both race and immigration, mostly among Democrats who moved toward a more liberal stance. Under Biden, Democrats are a bit less liberal and Republicans a bit more liberal on racial issues in particular, creating a very modest decrease in partisan differences. On immigration, both parties have shifted to the right — but such shifts are at times larger among Republicans than Democrats.

We trace these trends to changes in the information environment — including the rhetoric and positions of Trump and Biden as well as the work of activists, social movements, and the news media. Trump eschewed a dog-whistle politics of code words that had long characterized Republicans’ messaging on race and instead made explicit racial appeals to white Americans.24 Democratic politicians, meanwhile, have become increasingly vocal in their support for racial equality. Especially after the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement focused attention on racial injustice and the conduct of police. All of this helped push Democratic voters toward more liberal views on race.

However, Trump’s and others’ attacks on this movement helped create a backlash, ensuring that there would be no broader shift among Republicans toward acknowledging or seeking to overcome racial injustice.25 And after the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, the news media devoted less attention to topics related to racism. As a result, fewer Americans cited racial equality or police reform as major issues. And as president, Biden has pursued more moderate rhetoric and policies. Fewer Americans perceive Biden as favoring some racial groups over others, relative to Trump. All of these factors have helped produce modestly smaller partisan differences on racial issues.

On immigration issues, however, the story is different. There was the same liberal shift among Democrats during Trump’s presidency. But since then, the combination of record crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden’s own embrace of border enforcement, and criticism of his policies by Republican politicians has produced more restrictive public attitudes overall and sharp conservative shifts among Republican voters on issues like deportation.

The upshot of these trends is that attitudes about racial inequality, discrimination, and immigration appear to fit a popular model of public opinion: the thermostatic model of policy attitudes. In the thermostatic model, the public’s policy attitudes shift against the current president’s policies in response to real or perceived changes in the status quo — just like a thermostat will cool down a house when it gets too hot, or heat it up when it gets too cold.26

Thermostatic patterns have been frequently documented in attitudes toward government spending and programs. For example, Americans’ support for universal government health insurance dropped during Obama’s presidency and then increased as the Trump administration tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017.27 But for a long time, issues related to race and immigration did not display these thermostatic patterns.28

That no longer appears to be the case. The key reason is how the parties themselves have changed. With the two parties pushing in opposite directions on race and immigration even more than in the past, the public appears to be pushing back, with their opinions on these issues shifting to the left under Trump and back to the right under Biden. The emergence of these thermostatic patterns reflects the centrality of race and immigration to current partisan politics.
Moreover, this thermostatic pattern suggests a different story about what has happened, and may yet happen in U.S. politics. One theme in commentary about American opinion and policymaking on racial issues and immigration is that the country experienced a temporary “Great Awokening” that ultimately did not last. “Wokeness has peaked,” is now commonly invoked to describe American attitudes since 2020.29

But this interpretation does not fit some empirical patterns. For one, a number of survey questions show that much of the change experienced during this period has persisted. For another, on some questions about racial inequality Democrats and Republicans have moved in opposite directions. “Wokeness has peaked” does not help us understand why Democrats seem a bit less likely to express liberal attitudes about racial inequality but Republicans a bit more. Changes in elite opinion leadership — and particularly the contrast between Trump and Biden — provides a better explanation. Moreover, the trends in opinion differ, both overall and within parties, when the issue at hand is immigration rather than racial inequality. This too appears to derive from a combination of events, like the increase in border crossings, and how political leaders have responded to and communicated about those events.

Finally, if thermostatic patterns continue to characterize public opinion on these issues, then we should not anticipate a single peak in these attitudes followed by an inexorable decline. We should instead anticipate an ebb and flow in public opinion that depends on the party of the president, the direction of policymaking, and the messages citizens receive from political leaders. These predictable patterns may become the new “racial stasis” in American politics.

 

  1. Tankersley, Jim, and Michael D. Shear. 2021. “Biden Seeks to Define His Presidency by an Early Emphasis on Equity.” New York Times, January 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/business/biden-equity-racial-gender.html []
  2. Statement from President Joe Biden On the Bipartisan Senate Border Security Negotiations, January 26, 2024. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/26/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-the-bipartisan-senate-border-security-negotiations/ []
  3. On the development of this measure, see Donald R. Kinder and Lynn M. Sanders, “Divided by Color,” Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. On its meaning, see Cindy D. Kam and Camille D. Burge, “Uncovering Reactions to the Racial Resentment Scale across the Racial Divide,” The Journal of Politics, 2019, 80(1): pp. 314–320. []
  4. Griffin, Robert, Mayesha Quasem, John Sides, and Michael Tesler. 2021. Racing Apart. Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. See: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/racing-apart []
  5. Engelhardt, Andrew M. 2023. “Observational Equivalence in Explaining Attitude Change: Have White Racial Attitudes Genuinely Changed?” American Journal of Political Science, 67: 411–425. []
  6. Although the sample sizes for Asian-American Democrats in these VOTER Survey waves are not large, the same patterns emerge in the Cooperative Election Study, a different survey project, which has much larger samples. Further analysis shows similar trends across education groups among white Americans. []
  7. The decline in the number of Democrats who said that Black people face a lot or a great deal of discrimination was evident in Democrats of all major racial and ethnic groups. Even among Black Democrats, there was a modest decline (from 89 percent to 82 percent). The declining number of Democrats saying that Latino people face high levels of discrimination was also evident across racial and ethnic groups, including Latino Democrats. []
  8. John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck. 2022. The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapter 9. []
  9. Robert Griffin, Mayesha Quasem, John Sides, and Michael Tesler. 2021. Racing Apart. Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/racing-apart []
  10. Two large-scale studies of elite leadership are: John Zaller. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press; and Gabriel S. Lenz. 2012. Follow the Leader?: How Voters’ Respond to Politicians’ Policies and Performance. Chicago University Press. On how partisans may react against the opposite party’s cues, see Stephen P. Nicholson. 2011.“Polarizing Cues.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1): 52–66. []
  11. John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck. 2022. The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Robert Griffin, Mayesha Quasem, John Sides, and Michael Tesler. 2021. Racing Apart. Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/racing-apart []
  12. For the underlying data, see: https://api.gdeltproject.org/api/v2/summary/summary?d=iatv&t=summary&k=%28racism+OR+%22black+lives+matter%22+OR+%22george+floyd%22%29&ts=full&fs=station%3ACNN&fs=station%3AFOXNEWS&fs=station%3AMSNBC&svt=zoom&svts=zoom&swvt=zoom&ssc=yes&sshc=yes&swc=yes&stcl=yes&c=1 []
  13. This relationship between media attention to an issue and its perceived importance within the public is a conventional finding in political science research. See Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder. 1987. News That Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. []
  14. Perhaps relatedly, public support for Black Lives Matter has also fallen from its high point after George Floyd’s murder. See: https://civiqs.com/results/black_lives_matter?uncertainty=true&annotations=true&zoomIn=true. []
  15. In fact, we found that the less favorably white Americans felt toward Trump in 2020, the more their views of racial inequality shifted in a conservative direction between 2020 and 2024. []
  16. Anthony Salvanto, Jennifer De Pinto, and Fred Backus. 2023. “If Trump wins, more voters foresee better finances, staying out of war.” CBS News, November 5. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-vs-biden-poll-2024-presidential-election-year-out/ []
  17. See also Trent Ollerenshaw and Ashley Jardina. 2023. “The Asymmetric Polarization of Immigration Opinion in the United States.” Public Opinion Quarterly 87 (4): 1038–1053. []
  18. There is a similar pattern in the General Social Survey’s question about levels of immigration. For example, from 2016 to 2020, the percent of Democrats who supported increasing immigration grew from 25 percent to 39 percent. Republican support for decreasing immigration grew from 53 percent to 60 percent between 2018 and 2022. Changes in survey mode in the General Social Survey during 2021–22 complicate the ability to make comparisons over time, but these changes resemble what Gallup polls found. []
  19. See: https://civiqs.com/results/immigrants_citizenship?uncertainty=true&annotations=true&zoomIn=true. []
  20. Michael Tesler. 2023. “Why the border wall is getting more and more popular.” Good Authority, November 3. https://goodauthority.org/news/why-the-us-border-wall-is-getting-more-popular/ []
  21. A long line of research has shown that the volume of news coverage about an issue affects how important people think that issue is. See, for example, Shanto Iyengar and Donald Kinder. 1989. News that Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. []
  22. This is based on a search for the word “immigration” in the database of Congressional email newsletters maintained by political scientist Lindsey Cormack at dcinbox.com. Republican mentions of immigration have outpaced Democratic mentions since Biden’s election. For example, in the period between September 14, 2023, and April 9, 2024, 1,425 GOP emails mentioned immigration, compared to 497 Democratic emails. []
  23. Christopher D. DeSante and Candis Watts Smith. 2020. Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. []
  24. Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King. 2021. “White Protectionism in America.” Perspectives on Politics 19 (2): 460–478. []
  25. Jefferson, Hakeem, and Victor Ray. 2022. “White Backlash is a Type of Racial Reckoning, Too.” FiveThirtyEight, January https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/white-backlash-is-a-type-of-racial-reckoning-too/ []
  26. The canonical study is Christopher Wlezien. 1995. “The Public as Thermostat: Dynamics of Preferences for Spending.” American Journal of Political Science 39 (4): 981–1000. []
  27. See polling by the Pew Research Center and Gallup: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/10/03/most-continue-to-say-ensuring-health-care-coverage-is-governments-responsibility/. []
  28. Mary Layton Atkinson, K. Elizabeth Coggins, James A. Stimson, and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2021. The Dynamics of Public Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press. However, some prior work has identified the possibility of thermostatic dynamics in attitudes toward government policies that affect Black Americans. See: Paul M. Kellstedt. 2000. “Media Framing and the Dynamics of Racial Policy Preference.” American Journal of Political Science 44 (2): 245–260. There is also evidence of thermostatic dynamics in Western European attitudes about immigration. See: Van Hauwaert, Steven M. 2023. “Immigration as a thermostat? Public opinion and immigration policy across Western Europe (1980–2017).” Journal of European Public Policy 30 (12): 2665–2691. []
  29. Yglesias, Matthew. 2019. “The Great Awokening.” Vox, April 1, https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18259865/great-awokening-white-liberals-race-polling-trump-2020. There are many pieces about “peak wokeness.” See, for example: Cowen, Tyler. 2022. “Wokeism has peaked.” Bloomberg, February 18, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-18/wokeism-has-peaked-in-america-but-is-still-globally-influential; or Traldi, Oliver. 2022. “Peak Woke?” City Journal, July 6, https://www.city-journal.org/article/peak-woke. []
Featured
Report

On Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, and the 2024 Election

/
May 15, 2024
  • Table of Contents

Introduction

The 2020 presidential election happened amid a pandemic and racial justice protests, and it was followed by an insurrection. What can we expect in 2024?

Political observers, journalists, and others have begun raising questions about how different events could unleash uncertainty into the election year. Here are some of the things they’re thinking about:

  • What if a candidate, party, or segment of the public rejects the legitimacy of an election related court ruling? How likely is it that the losing side will accept the outcome, that voters will acknowledge the winner as legitimate, and that results will be accepted peacefully?
  • How will our democratic system respond to multiple criminal indictments against one of the party nominees for president? What are the implications of legal proceedings coinciding with the campaign? What would a guilty verdict mean?
  • What happens if a campaign of either major party candidate is suspended? How would the timing of this affect the election?
  • What if a third-party candidate garnered a significant share of the vote? Could this undercut acceptance of the result?
  • What if acts of domestic terrorism and violent threats disrupt campaigning and public events? If disillusionment and frustration with our democracy turn into widespread political violence or domestic terrorism, how will we address it?
  • What could happen if a new pandemic or regional climate disaster occurred on or near election day? How would the public respond to a state of emergency coinciding with voting or counting the vote?
  • How disruptive could AI-enabled misinformation campaigns get? How might a campaign use AI audio or video? How might they target particular communities? Could they change the makeup of particular coalitions?
  • How will our election system weather the unprecedented turnover of seasoned election administrators across the country? What could happen with a wave of new administrators?
  • Could interventions or geopolitical events driven by foreign powers reshape political coalitions? How might the pro-democracy community fracture as a result of external events? How will the actions of foreign actors using social media platforms and artificial intelligence tools shape the spread of misinformation?

At Democracy Fund, we refer to these unpredictable, uncertainty-causing events as “chaos factors.”

Feeling overwhelmed? These and other chaos factors could make even the most seasoned observer throw their hands up in frustration. We are facing serious threats that — individually or in combination — could push our democracy to the brink. If those of us in the pro-democracy field are going to engage efficiently and effectively, we need a way to think about the range of variables we face.

Chaos factor: an event that, if it occurs, would create huge uncertainty in the system.

Making Sense of Chaos Factors

Conventional wisdom tells us to rank threats by how likely they are to happen and how big the impact could be. A highly likely, high-impact threat is something to pay close attention to, while an unlikely or low-impact threat is not. But the world is not that simple.

The challenge we’re dealing with in 2024 is just how much uncertainty there is. While we are already aware of a long list of chaos factors, there are likely more that we haven’t imagined. Many of the chaos factors are unprecedented, and we just don’t know what impact they might have. We can try to determine which are more likely, but we risk getting it wrong. In other words, there is a significant risk of focusing our attention and resources on threats that could be inconsequential — while ignoring those that end up mattering.

At Democracy Fund, we believe that the best way to address chaos factors isn’t to proactively anticipate and respond to specific threats, but to remain resilient in the face of any threats that might emerge. Rather than jump to “how likely is it?” about a possible threat, we can step back and also ask “is it possible to see such a thing coming?” And instead of focusing on only “how big would the impact be?” we also ask “is this something we could be prepared to respond to?”

“There is a significant risk of focusing our attention and resources on threats that could be inconsequential — while ignoring those that end up mattering.”

In 2007, Nassim Nicholas Taleb introduced the idea of the “Black Swan” into the world of foresight and strategic planning. A Black Swan is something that happens that is both unforeseeable and highly impactful. By definition, you don’t anticipate a Black Swan and you’re not prepared for it. While it may be tempting to spend our time trying to think of the one crucial event that no one else saw coming, many of the chaos factors facing our democracy in 2024 are not Black Swans. They are foreseeable, and we can prepare for them.

Since the introduction of the Black Swan, the foresight field has created a number of different terms1 for events that could or could not destabilize a system, and we’ve developed a framework using those terms to help us make sense of chaos factors. We argue that while Black Swan thinking can help us explore uncertainty, we can build overall resilience by focusing on factors we can already foresee, and which of those require additional preparation: White Swans and Gray Rhinos. Meanwhile, we can deprioritize those events we might categorize as Paper Tigers.2

Creatures of Chaos

The framework we have developed at Democracy Fund considers chaos factors as White Swans, Gray Rhinos, Paper Tigers, or Black Swans based on whether we can foresee them and/or prepare for them. Even internally, this categorization has provoked debate. For example, what may be a Gray Rhino for some can be a Black Swan for others. As Taleb has put it, “a black swan for the turkey is not a black swan for the butcher.” This debate can be useful, as it surfaces assumptions about what risks we are aware of and preparing for — and about our cognitive biases more generally. We offer the following definitions and examples for your consideration.

A 2x2 grid shows rows labeled "Foreseeable" and "Unforeseeable" and columns labeled "Prepared" and "Unprepared." Icons and names of different animals are placed within the grid. White Swans: Prepared and Foreseeable. Gray Rhinos: Unprepared and Foreseeable. Paper Tigers: Prepared and Unforeseeable. Black Swans: Unprepared and Unforeseeable. Below the grid is another row labeled "Additional Considerations" and includes the animals "Dragon Kings" and "Peacocks."

Foreseeable

White outline of a swan against a dark blue background.

White Swans are the opposite of Black Swans. They are events we know will happen and for which we routinely prepare. For example, flu season happens every year, and public health departments should have a clear plan of action. In the democracy field, White Swans include:

  • Errors in the tabulation of votes. It is highly likely that this will happen somewhere, and election administrators generally have approaches to identify and to address it.
  • Low voter turnout. This is a perennial concern, often compounded by deliberate voter suppression including intimidation and misinformation campaigns
White outline of a rhino against a dark blue background.

Gray Rhinos are widely anticipated but ignored by the mainstream and largely not planned for. For example, public health experts warned about a global pandemic, but governments were largely caught off guard by rampant Covid breakouts. Likewise, the overturn of Roe v. Wade was a clear and stated goal of the conservative movement once it held a majority on the Supreme Court, yet the act still came as a shock to the public. A Gray Rhino for the U.S. election system was:

  • The false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. It was not a surprise that the 2020 election results would be disputed. However, the pro-democracy field was largely unprepared for the scale and persistence of the attacks on the integrity of our election system.

Unforeseeable

Dark blue outline of a tiger, stylized in a geometric way reminiscent of origami, against a light blue background.

Paper Tigers are vaguely defined threats that stoke fear and anxiety, but largely amount to nothing because of existing safeguards in the system. For example, relatively few of the new tech products marketed as “game changers” actually “disrupt” the system and take over meaningful market share. For U.S. elections, notable Paper Tigers are:

  • Voting machine hacking. This has been advanced as a threat to our democracy, yet 2020 was “the most secure election in U.S. history.” Despite claims that some form of coordinated electoral fraud could affect the outcome of an election, instances of fraud are extremely rare, and there are numerous checks in place to maintain the integrity of the vote count.
Dark blue outline of a swan against a light blue background.

Black Swans cannot be anticipated and cannot be prepared for. Their impact is significant. Taleb described the 9/11 terrorist attack as a Black Swan. Even though the possibility of an attack was understood, the nature and scale of the actual event was not. A Black Swan that continues to threaten our election system includes:

  • The storming of the Capitol and the insurrection on Jan 6th. Protests and rallies were anticipated, but the scope and scale of the violence were not.

Two categories of events we often discuss don’t fit neatly into this framework, but they are worth keeping in the back of our minds because they can help us understand the full sweep of the impacts we might face: the Dragon King and the Peacock.

White outline of the head of a dragon (as typically depicted in Western art) against a light blue background.

Dragon Kings are somewhat predictable but can unexpectedly bring about the collapse of the system.3 That collapse is unanticipated and catastrophic, often because we under-appreciate the scale of the event or how interdependent aspects of the system are. For example, a massive earthquake could trigger a collapse in the transport system, which then causes a failure of food distribution. In the democracy field, there may be just such a combination of events that cause governance as we know it to break down, such as:

  • Election certification refusal. A critical mass of counties and/or states refuse to certify the
    election results, and attempts to resolve the dispute through legal means fail.
  • President defies judiciary. A president refuses to abide by a court order even after an appeals process has played out.
White outline of a peacock against a light blue background.

Peacocks are totally inconsequential events that serve as a ploy for attention, often using a familiar formula or tactic. Peacocks are often distractions or cynical attempts at self-promotion.4 For example, the U.S. trucker convoy protesting federal vaccine and mask mandates was largely a manufactured controversy, because by the time it happened, the only federal requirements of this type applied to healthcare and military personnel. In terms of elections, Peacocks can include:

  • Election-inflected noise. Media personalities and media channels (who may not actually have much influence over voters) spin up election-related stories or stage photo ops.

Planning for Resilience

So how does this framework help us to set priorities and develop strategies for the year ahead? At Democracy Fund, we’ve spent significant time doing strategic foresight work to help us prepare for 2024. Here are some of our recommendations.

1. Keep doing the core work

As in every election, in 2024 there is a need for poll worker training, get-out-the-vote efforts, informing the public about an election, election protection, and other “bread and butter” election work. These efforts all respond to White Swans: very real challenges that we know are real and for which we know how to prepare.

Handling White Swans may not grab the headlines the same way Black Swan efforts do. But if, for example, we lose sight of the core work of election protection, we risk letting a key part of our resilience atrophy.

We launched a multifunder campaign, All by April, because we’ve learned over many election cycles that the best way to support free, fair, and representative elections is to get money out the door early.

TRUSTED ELECTION FUND

Many organizations are working to address Gray Rhinos. The Trusted Election Fund (TEF) is a nonpartisan pooled fund that supports efforts to prepare for and respond to high-risk threats to U.S. elections. TEF plays a critical role in helping the sector identify, communicate, plan, and support efforts to counter the range of threats we face.

This ensures that front-line election defenders have the funding they need to do the work that needs to be done.

2. Listen to the communities who can see chaos factors on the horizon

Most of the chaos factors on our list are Gray Rhinos. They are real, known risks. Are we doing enough to think through and plan for them — and identify others? We need to listen to people on the frontlines of defending our democracy and ask them what’s keeping them up at night. In particular, marginalized communities have often experienced the earliest and worst effects of our democratic system’s failures, and they are often aware of signals that indicate threats on the horizon before anyone else. As a sector, we need to build trusted relationships with people who can identify the Gray Rhinos — and take their warnings seriously.

We need to listen to the people on the frontlines of defending our democracy and ask them what’s keeping them up at night.

3. Provide early, strong support to communities most likely to be impacted.

We may not be able to foresee a Black Swan or contain its impact, but we know who is most likely to be affected — and to respond effectively in its aftermath. It’s easy to get fixated on conceiving of every imaginable threat to our democracy and think that a novel or untested approach is the best way to protect against it. But an important part of resilience is investing in the people and the ideas that we know can get the job done, and investing in them early.

Community activists, organizers, and leaders have been responsible for most of our democracy’s transformative moments, and they are a key line of defense against authoritarianism. Their movement- and power-building work has been part of our democratic system since its inception, ensuring that communities most likely to be affected by anti-democratic actors and practices are able to respond and engage. Investing in this work can help prepare our democracy for whatever comes next. The time to support movement- and power-builders is not after a crisis has occurred, but now, when they can build the critical democratic infrastructure needed to respond.

An important part of resilience is investing in the people and the ideas that we know can get the job done, and investing in them early.

4. Watch out for distractions

There will be a lot of noise in this election year: fear-mongering around Paper Tigers that our system is already built to withstand, and Peacocks designed to distract everyone from important priorities. It’s easy to get sucked into the latest headline, clickbait, or petty provocation.

We need to be disciplined about not letting our focus wander into issues and events that ultimately aren’t consequential. We also need to push back against narratives that sow distrust in our electoral system, and that seek to undermine the processes and safeguards in place to ensure that our elections are free and fair.

5. Don’t ignore the Dragon King

Catastrophic events are a possibility that’s hard to face, but we have to acknowledge the dangerous moment in which we find ourselves. We don’t want to dwell on the worst-case scenario, but ignoring it or pretending that the collapse of our democracy is simply not possible would be a grave mistake. The leadup to the 2024 election will demand our full attention, because the risks are real — and the stakes for democracy couldn’t be higher.

Leaning into Uncertainty Together

Many of us in the pro-democracy field are individually preparing for what might happen this year by doing scenario and contingency planning. This can help each of us anticipate possibilities and reduce uncertainty about how we might respond to specific events.

But what if we focused on creating resilience across our field? This would mean leaning into uncertainty together as we share insights. At first, our expanded ability to see chaos factors across the system might feel even more overwhelming. But by working together we’ll be able to have richer conversations on which chaos factors we’re seeing and how they might interact. We’ll be able to discuss how to prepare, and explore different interpretations of the longer-term impacts on our democracy.

This shared practice could create more powerful and holistic insights into how our democratic system works, and what it might take to defend and transform it into the inclusive, multiracial democracy that many of us seek. Uncertainty, after all, can be a powerful place for listening to each other, learning, and building solidarity. We can let go of the need to be right, and consider new ideas and new perspectives with curiosity and openness. We can ensure that whatever happens — whether White Swan, Gray Rhino, Paper Tiger, Black Swan, Peacock, or Dragon King — the pro-democracy sector will be prepared.

  1. This typology continues to be refined, reinterpreted, and adapted by many different foresight thinkers and practitioners. The definitions, examples, and framework provided here are from Democracy Fund’s internal futures and foresight practice, but we have provided citations to credit individuals who first coined the terms. []
  2. Paper Tiger is a term that comes from the Chinese “zhǐlǎohǔ” and is not specific to the foresight field, but we have found the concept helpful to describe a certain type of event. []
  3. Didier Sornette coined the term “Dragon King as described in the paper, Dragon-Kings, Black Swans and the Prediction of Crises.” Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1596032. []
  4. The term Peacock was popularized in the horizon scanning field by the consulting firm Global Business Network. []
Featured
Report

Field in Focus: The State of Pro-Democracy Institutional Philanthropy

Robert Griffin, Charlie Lobeck, Mariana Botero, Sarah Cooper, Michelle Diggles, Conor McKay, Eliza Steffen
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January 22, 2024
  • Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Philanthropic support for promoting a healthy democracy has grown in recent years, marking a period of transformation for the field. Since 2016, an influx of funding, actors, and philanthropic infrastructure has amplified the impact of pro-democracy efforts while infusing the movement with needed dynamism.

At the same time, from a funder perspective these developments mean that today’s ecosystem is increasingly complex, confusing, and difficult to navigate. Sustaining the benefits of this transformation while avoiding the pitfalls of rapid growth requires a full understanding of funder capacities and needs.

Drawing insights from interviews and surveys conducted with 70 institutional funders, this report sheds new light on the state and direction of the democracy funding landscape. It describes:

  1. Field Magnitude and Growth — estimates of the size, scope, and directionality of democracy-related philanthropic funding.
  2. Field Focal Areas — insights on major focal areas for funding today, how that has changed over time, and where additional funding may be needed in the future.
  3. New Actors and Infrastructure — lessons on the experiences of newer funders and the evolving field of funding intermediaries.
  4. Looking Ahead — outstanding questions for future research and opportunities to strengthen the funding field.

Field Magnitude and Growth: Significant Growth from Institutional Philanthropy

It is well understood by those in the field that funding for democracy-related work has grown dramatically since 2016. Many survey respondents and interviewees note concern that this growth may soon wane. However, this research shows significant and sustainable funding growth from institutional philanthropy, even as questions remain about trends in other sources of field funding. Findings in this report include:

  • Among survey respondents, funding for democracy-related work is estimated to have grown between 42 percent and 61 percent in four years.
  • If other funders who were not surveyed grew at a similar rate, we estimate institutional philanthropy for democracy to have grown from between $3.8 billion and $4.3 billion in 2017–2018 ($1.9 billion and $2.1 billion on average per year) to between $5.4 billion and $6.9 billion in 2021–2022 ($2.7 billion and $3.4 billion on average per year).
  • Despite this growth, democracy funding remains small compared to that for other issues. The high estimate of $3.4 billion per year would account for only 0.7 percent of all philanthropic funding in the U.S. in 2022.
  • Institutional philanthropic funding for democracy is expected to grow further in 2023–2024, with 45 percent of survey respondents planning to increase funding and just 8 percent planning to decrease it compared to 2021–2022.
  • Surprisingly, the majority (57 percent) of survey respondents report having increased funding in 2021–2022 relative to 2019–2020 — during the last U.S. presidential election cycle — showing less cyclicality in funding from institutional philanthropy than expected.
  • Long-term and unrestricted funding is becoming more common across institutional philanthropy, despite concerns that funding growth has focused on short-term goals.
  • Importantly, these data provide insight into plans and trends among institutional funders, but field stakeholders remain concerned about trends in funding from other sources — including individual donors — especially as many grantees report fundraising challenges.

Field Focal Areas: Democracy Field Shifting and Maturing to Respond to Emerging Threats

The set of issues viewed by funders as core to the health of democracy includes many that have long been the focus of field efforts, while also incorporating newer foci that have emerged in response to evolving threats to democratic institutions and processes. Some recently expanded foci relate to threats that predate our institutions themselves, such as white supremacy and racial inequity, which philanthropy has historically played a role in exacerbating.

Other issues have come to the fore as a result of rapid technological change. Findings in this report include:

  • Voting and elections issues remain core to the field. Survey respondents cited efforts to protect voting rights (76 percent), election administration (73 percent), and voter engagement (86 percent) most often when describing work they funded in 2021–2022.
  • Survey respondents note strong and increasing support for newer focal areas, with 70 percent reporting funding for social and racial justice work and 59 percent reporting funding for media policy and misinformation and disinformation.
  • Many of the same issues are viewed as being underfunded, with media policy and misinformation/ disinformation and election administration cited most often as areas in need of greater attention and focus from funders.

New Actors and Infrastructure: Growing Role of Newer Funders and Intermediaries

In recent years, the democracy field has also attracted a large influx of new funders and has spurred creation of a host of new funding intermediaries — all with different motivations, interests, and foci. This changing landscape has made the field more dynamic and complex, contributing to an appetite among funders to better understand the nature of this growth and how to best capture the benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls. Findings in this report include:

  • The rise of authoritarianism is not the only driving factor in bringing newer funders to the field. Concerns about degrading democratic institutions and the interests and experience of new internal staff are also driving entrants to the space.
  • New entrants to the democracy funding field find relationships and networking to be most helpful to success in their early years, followed by access to relevant research and fresh perspectives from new staff and board members.
  • The number and role of funding intermediaries is growing, offering benefits, such as grantmaking convenience, and challenges, such as greater complexity of options.

Looking Ahead: Impact, Opportunity, and the Value of Community Building

Our research shows that the relatively small democracy funding field is growing and changing rapidly. And while these changes are viewed as positive overall, funders express a significant lack of clarity about the current funding landscape and even more uncertainty about what the future may hold. Growing in ways that meet the needs of the field and the moment requires building a far stronger community of funders and bridging current gaps in relationships, information, and funding approaches. Some opportunities include:

  • Community building, including that which further supports and engages newer funders.
  • Understanding grantee experiences, especially BIPOC-led and -serving organizations.
  • Defining democracy work and its focal areas to bolster future efforts to map the field.
  • Strengthening coordination across funders and across intermediaries.
  • Identifying and filling gaps for key subfields of democracy work that are underfunded.

Foreword

This report intends to take a critical step in providing a stronger, more comprehensive understanding of the evolving field of democracy-focused philanthropy in the United States — about where it has been, where it may be headed, and how funder perceptions and realities on the ground compare. There are still lingering questions about the current state and future trends, and there is certainly a need for more coordinated research and data collection. All such insights can help field stakeholders best achieve our shared goals: protecting and strengthening American democracy.

How can philanthropy better support the movement for a more inclusive, multiracial democracy?

Over the coming months and years, Democracy Fund will work with grantees and funders to better understand where philanthropy has been most impactful and where we are falling short — with the goal of creating resources that support funders in doing better. One of the first steps in this process is understanding more about how philanthropy is supporting the field today.

By our estimate, institutional philanthropy is currently investing an average of $2.7 to $3.4 billion a year to support democracy. This is a remarkable commitment and represents a dramatic increase from where we were at just five years ago. But that figure doesn’t tell the whole story.

For democracy to thrive, we need significant long-term commitments to the pillars that support it. While it’s encouraging that democracy funding has increased significantly in recent years — by our estimates, somewhere between 42 and 61 percent growth from 2017–2018 to 2021–2022 — we must do more. And we can: Less than one percent of philanthropy was devoted to democracy in 2022, while other issue areas still receive far more attention and support.

We know firsthand that the increasing number of intermediaries, programs, and activities supporting democracy has made it harder to clearly understand where resources are most needed and where philanthropy has become part of the problem. The infrastructure the field has constructed is remarkable, but its complexity requires deeper study to help funders maintain confidence that resources are being allocated effectively.

Until now, we’ve lacked hard data and corresponding analysis about the current state and direction of pro- democracy philanthropy. We commissioned this report as a first step toward filling that gap — to establish a baseline from which we can measure trends in the field. We look forward to working with partners to develop and release more data and reports that can refine our collective understanding.

We intend for Democracy Fund to play an increasing role in helping provide an unbiased look at the state and direction of the field, as well as to help us all better understand what it means to be an effective democracy funder. We believe that better data and improved information sharing can strengthen the collective sense of identity and community across the wide range of institutions engaged in this work.

For that data and information to be useful, it must reflect the diversity of the pro-democracy community and America itself. This report is limited by the set of institutions we were able to engage in this process — and we know that it tells an incomplete story. In the future, we will broaden our inputs by engaging more partners in these discussions and future surveys.

We look forward to continuing our work with a broad range of funders — from the long-standing to the newly interested — in support of an inclusive, multiracial democracy that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy. The growth we’ve seen has helped produce some remarkable impact, and now is the time to double down on support for the field.

Joe Goldman
President, Democracy Fund

Lauren Hill
Senior Director of Partnerships, Democracy Fund

Introduction

For years, philanthropic institutions funding democracy-related work have struggled to fully understand the size and scope of the field. As more actors enter the space with new priorities and interests, even defining the field is a complex task. Publicly available data on field investments has also been limited, a historical trend that has persisted in part because funders often choose to maintain anonymity in the face of increased polarization, media scrutiny, and rising political violence. Still, funders need current, relevant data to inform strategic decisions.

Democracy Fund surveyed and interviewed more than 70 funders engaged in democracy-related work to help establish some of this information. Based on an in-depth analysis of funder insights and their implications for the future of the field, this report seeks to provide:

  • An up-to-date assessment of the size, scope, and directionality of democracy-related funding
  • Insights on potential gaps in the field
  • Details about the experiences of newer field funders that can bring more actors to the field and help recent entrants remain

Funders may use this report to inform their individual or collective funding strategies. Findings may be particularly valuable to new donors who wish to have a broader understanding of the space and its evolution.

The report includes aggregate data from survey respondents and quotes from respondents and interviewees — all of which have been anonymized. While more than 70 funders were engaged, the exact number engaged on any individual element or survey question varies. The report provides sample sizes for individual data points where applicable.1

 

 RESEARCH INPUTS

Surveys

  • 70 survey responses and direct input from foundations describing their democracy-related funding and key trends
  • 37 responding foundations shared topline funding totals for 2021-2022

Interviews/Qual Input

  • 17 interviews with field stakeholders, including
    • Funding intermediaries
    • Newer funders (<5 years in field)
    • Legacy funders (>5 years in field)
    • Other key stakeholders
  • Input on democracy issue categories from key anchor funders

Desk Research

  • Candid data over time
  • 40+ reports and articles from industry and mainstream sources, including:
    • Funders
    • Journals
    • News outlets

Confidential Data

  • Two sets of confidential internal democracy-related grant data – one for 2017- 2018 and one for 2021-2022 – each from a distinct sample of 12 foundations
  • Used on background to inform and validate findings, and for additional insights where appropriate

Our survey was distributed to a broad set of funding institutions known by Democracy Fund as supporters of democracy-related work, including many that are long-tenured field funders as well as many that began funding in the space more recently. Expert interviews were conducted with newer funders, individual donors, funding intermediaries, and other stakeholders with knowledge of the democracy funding landscape.

KEY TERMS

Some field-related terms mentioned frequently within this report are:

  • Institutional funders — registered foundations with sizeable endowments and annual payouts. These foundations’ grantmaking operations are typically managed by foundation staff, rather than by the founder(s) themselves or by outsourced consultants.
  • Individual donors — people who may have a registered foundation with little to no staff, or who give directly or through an intermediary such as a donor-advised fund. While there are some exceptions, individual donor payouts tend to be smaller than those of institutional funders.
  • Legacy funders — those who report having funded democracy work for more than five years.
  • New(er) funders — those who report having funded democracy work for less than five years.
  • Intermediaries — organizations and vehicles that support funders who prefer not to fund in this space directly or alone. Examples include donor-advised funds, fiscal sponsors, community foundations, and pooled funds/donor collaboratives.
  • Funding cycles — research periods of two years that account for peaks and downturns that might occur alongside the U.S. election cycle, recognizing that election-related funding makes up a significant portion of spending in the democracy space. For example, we review data for the 2017–2018, 2019–2020, and 2021–2022 cycles.

Field Magnitude and Growth

Significant Growth from Institutional Philanthropy

KEY FINDINGS IN THIS SECTION

  • Among survey respondents, funding for democracy-related work is estimated to have grown between 42 percent and 61 percent in four years.
  • If other funders who were not surveyed grew at a similar rate, we estimate institutional philanthropy for democracy to have grown from between $3.8 billion and $4.3 billion in 2017–2018 ($1.9 billion and $2.1 billion on average per year) to between $5.4 billion and $6.9 billion in 2021–2022 ($2.7 billion and $3.4 billion on average per year).
  • Despite this growth, democracy funding remains small compared to that for other issues. The high estimate of $3.4 billion per year would account for only 0.7 percent of all philanthropic funding in the U.S. in 2022.
  • Institutional philanthropic funding for democracy is expected to grow further in 2023– 2024, with 45 percent of survey respondents planning to increase funding and just 8 percent planning to decrease it compared to 2021–2022.
  • Surprisingly, the majority (57 percent) of survey respondents reported having increased funding in 2021–2022 relative to 2019–2020 — during the last U.S. presidential election cycle — showing less cyclicality in funding from institutional philanthropy than expected.
  • Long-term and unrestricted funding is becoming more common across institutional philanthropy, despite concerns that funding growth has focused on short-term goals.
  • Importantly, these data provide insight into plans and trends among institutional funders, but field stakeholders remain concerned about trends in funding from other sources — including individual donors — especially as many grantees report fundraising challenges.

Philanthropic interest in and support for promoting a healthy democracy have grown significantly in recent years, bolstered by an infusion of funding, actors, and infrastructure. Funders in this field have concerns about the sustainability of this interest, whether rapid growth has made the field more difficult to navigate, and what these changes to the funding landscape may mean for grantees and organizations on the ground.

This section of the report compares common perceptions about the funding landscape with what the data says about the size of the field and how it has changed since 2016. It also offers insights into primary drivers of that change and expectations for how it will evolve in the near future.

Funding from Institutional Philanthropy is Estimated to Have Grown 42 Percent–61 Percent from 2017 through 2022

To better understand the current landscape of philanthropic funding for democracy-related work and how it has grown and evolved since 2016, we leveraged several sources of data:2

  • Publicly available democracy-related grant data — taken from Candid’s “Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy” tool, which maps all philanthropic funding for democracy-related work, for the time periods 2017–2018 and 2021–2022.3
  • An original survey of institutional funders — self-reported survey response data from 37 institutional funders, collected between April and August of 2023, describing their funding levels for democracy-related work in 2021–2022.4
  • Internal grant data for a small sample of participating foundations — two sets of confidential, internal democracy-related grant data — one for 2017–2018 and one for 2021–2022 — each from a distinct sample of 12 funding organizations, to compare with Candid data and survey data for validation and extrapolation.

To begin, we looked at the Candid database to assess both the overall amount of spending in the democracy space as well as how it has changed over time. Candid is a nonprofit that specializes in providing data and insights on U.S. nonprofits. In the 2017–2018 cycle, Candid documents about $3.5 billion in grants for democracy-related work from 9,144 funders to 12,493 grantees. By contrast, the same database documents only $1.7 billion in democracy- related funding across just 323 funders to 2,250 grantees in 2021–2022. Taken at face value, the database suggests a radical drop-off in both the number of funders and grantees as well as the overall amount of funding in the field.

While Candid is one of the most authoritative sources of data for U.S. philanthropic funding, there are several reasons to suspect these figures are underestimating the size of the field during both time periods. Candid’s methodology relies significantly on cataloging IRS data about philanthropic giving as well as submissions from philanthropic entities themselves. Because of this, the full amount of money going into democracy-related work may not be reflected for multiple reasons:

  • There is a several-year lag in publication of IRS data — which means that it is often years before a fuller picture of the field for a given period is available.
  • Cataloging IRS data is prone to under classification given the small amount of data available about any given grant.
  • Institutional giving to re-grantors or intermediaries — an increasingly common practice in philanthropy — is difficult to classify because both the intent and the recipient of the grant are obscured.

In addition to these methodological issues, it also appears to be the case that Candid has not updated its democracy-related database to include all relevant data from the years of interest — due in part to the lag previously mentioned. For instance, when reviewing the broader Candid database of funding across issues — from which Candid’s democracy-related database draws its funding data — the “Democracy” and “Voter Rights” categories alone account for $3.5 billion in funding for 2021–2022, compared to just $1.7 billion in the democracy- related database.5

This is obviously a problem for any kind of trend analysis using the democracy database as it would systematically undercount the amount of money in the field in recent years. Similarly, the data from Candid’s broader database, while helpful for validation on general sizing, employs a different taxonomy of issues than does the democracy database and our survey.

With all of these issues in mind, we leveraged a unique set of data — internal grantmaking records for 12 foundations with significant democracy portfolios during the 2017–2018 period — to see if these concerns were justified. In theory, we would expect these records to be more accurate about true funding levels for these institutions than the Candid database.

We compared the 2017–2018 data from Candid for these organizations with the records that the organizations themselves classified as being democracy-related and found a consistent undercount of funding. Specifically, Candid underestimated the size of these organizations’ democracy-related giving by anywhere from 3 percent to 93 percent — with an average of 20 percent undercount across all 12 institutions. Given that this period is well outside the typical IRS time lag, one conclusion is that this could mostly be explained by the other classification-related issues.

We conducted a similar exercise using the survey data described above. Specifically, 10 foundations that provided estimates of their democracy-related giving in 2021–2022 via our survey are included in Candid data for the period. When comparing these, the average undercount rate was 53 percent. While we believe that some of the same classification issues are at play, these exercises confirmed that despite Candid being the most comprehensive database currently available, some combination of these concerns result in it undercounting funding in the field. And while we highly suspect the self-reported data we have collected from institutional funders is more accurate on a case-by-case basis, it is limited in that it describes funding from dozens rather than hundreds or thousands of organizations.

With this in mind, we chose to triangulate between these three sources of data — leveraging the strength of each to better estimate both the size of the field and trends over time.

As a first pass, we created estimates for the size of the field using only funding that was directly documented. Specifically, that means funding that was documented in the Candid database in either period, in the 12 institutional internal funding records from 2017–2018, or in the 37 institutional survey responses for 2021–2022.

Using this method, the total funding mapped goes from $3.5 billion to $3.6 billion in 2017–2018 and $1.7 billion to $2.9 billion in 2021–2022.6

However, based on earlier comparisons between Candid data and these other sources of funding information, we have substantial reason to believe that the undercounting in both time periods is systemic. Taking those concerns seriously, we chose to develop an upper- and lower-bound estimate using undercount and growth rates from these records and survey data to enhance estimates from Candid.

To create our first estimate — the upper-bound estimate — we generally assumed that the undercounting and growth trends we document in our records and survey data are consistent across all organizations in the democracy space.

Specifically, for 2017–2018 we assume that the 20 percent rate of undercounting found for the smaller sample of 12 organizations in 2017–2018 is consistent across all funders in Candid’s database. Adjusted for that undercount, we would now estimate that funding in that period was closer to $4.3 billion.

To estimate democracy funding totals for 2021–2022, we make two calculations. First, we compare self-reported democracy funding totals for 2021–2022 among survey respondents with the undercount-adjusted Candid totals for the same foundations for 2017–2018. This analysis suggests funding among these organizations for democracy- related work grew by an estimated 61 percent over the period. Specifically, 81 percent (25 of 31 for which data were available) of funders in this sample are estimated to have increased their funding over the period — often by substantial amounts — while just 19 percent (six of 31) decreased their funding.

Second, assuming the same growth rate for all funders in Candid’s data for 2017–2018, we project the magnitude of funding among this larger sample to have grown from $4.3 billion in 2017–2018 ($2.1 billion on average per year) to $6.9 billion in 2021–2022 ($3.4 billion on average per year).7,8

The reason we consider this an upper-bound estimate is that it is entirely possible that the undercounting and growth trend estimates from our sample of records and survey respondents is not representative of the larger universe of democracy funders. In the case of the undercounting, the 12 organizations for which we have internal funding data from 2017–2018 represent institutions that are relatively large. It is certainly possible that the methodological issues that lead to undercounting in Candid are more likely to manifest among these larger organizations. If true, this would overestimate the rate of undercounting in Candid.

Similarly, it is certainly possible that foundations that increased their democracy-related funding during this period were more likely to respond to our survey. If true, this would over-estimate the rate of growth between 2017–2018 and 2021–2022.

Given these concerns, we also created what we’ll refer to as the lower-bound estimate. In this projection, we assumed the rate of undercounting in Candid for other funders was only half the rate found in this project (10 percent, instead of 20 percent) and that those funders experienced only half the rate of growth between these two periods (30 percent, instead of 61 percent). Under these assumptions, we estimate the field has grown from $3.8 billion in 2017–2018 ($1.9 billion on average per year) to $5.4 billion in 2021–2022 ($2.7 billion on average per year).

While under no illusions about the potential issues with the assumption behind these projections — discussed more fully below — we believe they represent a good faith and comprehensive attempt to marry disparate and imperfect sources of data.

Democracy Funding in Context

Despite growth within the field, democracy funding accounted for less than 1 percent of philanthropy in the United States in 2022, and many noted concerns that field funding is still not sufficient to meet the scale of challenges and needs. Giving USA — a public service initiative that produces an annual report that provides a comprehensive look at all philanthropic giving in the United States — reports that total giving across all issue areas in 2022 at roughly $500 billion9

Our estimate of $3.4 billion in average funding per year for democracy work would amount to 0.7 percent of this total. Though democracy funding has grown more quickly than all philanthropy since 2018 (61 percent versus 17 percent) and its share has increased over time, other discrete issue areas still saw far greater investment in 2022.

In this context, many continue to see democracy as an area of underinvestment, particularly given that a healthy democracy is a critical prerequisite to realizing change and impact in other fields. As one interviewee put it, democracy-related investment “could unlock impact in other downstream areas.”

Limitations of Data and Analyses

In the course of conducting research, it is always worthwhile to take a step back and consider the ways in which a given source of data may be flawed or otherwise limited. In this case, our analysis is based in large part on self-reported survey data and therefore subject to a wide variety of potential issues. While we stand behind the analysis presented above, it is worth considering potential sources of bias:

  • Aggregate trends and funder perspectives inherently miss grantee experiences — These estimates describe field funding and growth in the aggregate, based on surveying funders. However, the experience for individual grantees and field organizations will certainly vary. In particular, BIPOC-led organizations and those serving underrepresented communities historically have been disadvantaged in receiving philanthropic funding. It is entirely possible, and even probable, that the distribution of this funding growth was unequal and that the overall growth reported here does not reflect the experiences of every organization. For instance, BIPOC-led organizations may have had significantly more difficult experiences entering the field than funders overall. This is an important area for future research.
  • Definitions of democracy work differ across data sources, impacting comparability — The categories of work included in Candid’s taxonomy of the field (used to assess 2017–2018 funding) differ slightly from those used for the survey (used to assess 2021–2022 funding). The taxonomy used for the survey was designed as an update to Candid’s taxonomy, with a goal of rearranging categories and understood sub-areas to better match current field foci. For instance, our taxonomy includes a dedicated category for social and racial justice work — an area of significant focus for field funders particularly of late — yet much of this work likely fell within prior existing categories, such as the civil liberties and rule of law category and the issue-based participation category. Therefore, some amount of the estimated growth over time could be attributed to changes in definitions, potentially biasing estimates upward given the more expansive taxonomy. A fuller discussion of the new taxonomy and the changes included are described in this report’s section on Field Focal Areas, as well as in the Appendix.
  • Estimates rely on data about funders in 2017–2018, yet the population of funders in this field has likely shifted — These totals are also limited to estimated growth among funders included in Candid’s database as of 2017– 2018, which primarily consists of institutional philanthropy. This sample inherently excludes newer field entrants since that period, while also including some institutions that may have stopped funding in the space. It also does not appropriately account for funding and growth from individual donors, as not one funder in this sample was categorized by Candid as an “Individual” donor. If this research were to capture these other sources of funding, the overall magnitude of estimated field funding would be larger, and the estimated growth over the period also might be higher.
  • Survey sample is possibly biased toward funders with larger funding growth — The survey was distributed to a set of funders known to Democracy Fund as supporting democracy work, due to existing awareness and relationships as well as publicly available information. Of those that received the survey, only 47 percent responded to the survey or otherwise provided topline information on their democracy funding. It is possible that funders who are decreasing funding or exiting the field entirely may have been less likely to be included in the initial sample and less likely to respond to the survey even if they were included. If true, this would lead us to overestimate both the size of the field today and its growth over the period analyzed.
  • Datasets may contain different amounts of 501(c)(4) funding data — Survey data included in these calculations account for only 501(c)(3) funding, while Candid data are intended to be inclusive of both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) funding. However, it is unclear to what extent Candid data for 2017–2018 accounts for 501(c)(4) funding, and how large this amount would be relative to the total funding for the period. If the data in Candid for 2017–2018 includes large amounts of 501(c)(4) funding, this would lead us to underestimate the rate at which Candid undercounts 501(c)(3) funding and would likely lead us to underestimate growth in 501(c)(3) funding over the period.10

Institutional Philanthropy for Democracy Work is Expected to Grow Further in 2023–2024

Even with the understanding that the field of democracy funders has grown since 2016, the future remains unclear. Many note anxiety that recent field growth may decline — both in the number of funders engaged and the amount of funding available — based on the sense that the worst crises of recent years have passed. In particular, these concerns often center on newer field funders and individual donors viewed as less committed to the space long- term. Several survey respondents shared these sentiments:

  • “I’m worried that some of the new energy and funding that came out of the 2016–2020 era is starting to drop.”
  • “I think there is a growing complacency and lack of urgency around these issues as a result of Trump no longer being in office, when in fact the authoritarian threat is growing, not decreasing.”
  • “I hear that overall giving is down and there is some donor fatigue in play, which is concerning given the challenges and opportunities in the space at the moment.”

These concerns align with reports from grantees and grassroots organizations that fundraising for nonpartisan democracy work related to the 2023–2024 election cycle has been slower than in recent cycles, particularly from individual donors — a trend described anecdotally by interviewees.

While funding trends from newer funders and individual donors are difficult to predict, it should be encouraging to note that most of the institutional funders that responded to our survey plan to increase or maintain funding levels going forward. Of respondents, 45 percent (24 of 53) reported that they plan to increase democracy-focused funding in 2023–2024 from that issued in 2021–2022, and 47 percent (25 of 53) reported that their funding will stay the same. Only 8 percent (four of 53) reported that they plan to decrease funding.

Some survey respondents noted that 2023–2024 funding decisions, while expected to increase or remain constant, had yet to be finalized. In part, this was due to internal planning dynamics, as funders indicated they were still in the process of developing programmatic goals and strategies. Others note this was a deliberate delay to see what issues or funding gaps emerge — reflecting both a response to concerns about potential funding shortfalls as well as a potential factor contributing to slow field fundraising to date.

With the combination of delays in funding decisions by institutional philanthropy and reported fundraising challenges from individual or newer donors, it is understandable that grantees are feeling cross-pressured, finding resources scarce at a time when many expected to be expanding operations.

Respondents were also asked what led to changes in their funding priorities between the 2021–2022 and 2023– 2024 funding cycles. The most common reason funders identified for both changing their funding strategy and increasing funding was a desire to grow support for specific subtopics. For instance, one respondent shared that “the foundation has shifted its focus to center racial justice and equity, [addressing root causes,] structural racism, and systems change.” Another shared that “[the foundation] intend[s] to deepen [its] work on election infrastructure and misinformation and disinformation.”

CAVEATS TO PLANNED FUNDING FINDINGS

There are three caveats to consider when looking at findings about planned funding growth:

  • Some growth may be cyclical — although survey data suggest less cyclicality than expected — Given that 2024 is a U.S. presidential election year, some of this expected increase in funding may be cyclical. However, there are reasons to believe that this represents real non-cyclical growth. A similar number of survey respondents also reported having increased (57 percent, 30 of 53) or maintained (28 percent, 15 of 53) funding in 2021–2022 relative to 2019–2020 — despite the latter being the past presidential election cycle. Taken at face value, this may suggest more funding stability between electoral cycles overall within institutional philanthropy. In the reasons survey respondents gave for increased funding over the period, some did point to time-bound crises that won’t persist — such as funding responses to the events of January 6, 2021 — still many noted a broader range of factors that we might expect to sustain over time, e.g., a number reported increased support for media and journalism issues.
  • Survey sample is possibly biased toward funders planning to increase funding — These findings may be subject to sample bias, as those expecting to decrease funding in the space may have been less likely to respond to the survey. Further, high-net-worth donors who may have been more recent entrants in the field were not included substantially in the survey. If true, our findings may represent an overly rosy picture of future funding plans among not only institutional funders, but also the field writ large.
  • Aggregate trends may differ from grantee experiences — It is worth noting that the trends among funders identified here would not necessarily align with the experiences of individual grantees. It may be the case that increased funding disproportionately serves new grantees or flows through new intermediaries, and therefore may not result in higher funding levels for pre-existing organizations. Further, we know from prior research that BIPOC-led nonprofits and those serving communities of color tend to receive less support than their white-led and white-serving counterparts.11 Thus, while indicators of increased funding levels overall is a positive sign, we should be cautious in how we interpret the impact this has for organizations on the ground.

Multiyear and Unrestricted Funding are Becoming More Common Across Institutional Philanthropy

Several interviewees and survey respondents cited concerns that the field lacks sufficient long-term and unrestricted funding for grantees. In particular, newer funders and individual donors were perceived as being overly focused on short-term goals. As two respondents noted:

  • “It’s great that there’s a heavy focus on elections, but so little long-term thinking [is] happening in the democracy”
  • “Some donors do not provide predictable, reliable, consistent funding to organizations to be able to sustain their work year-round and create multiyear plans for the future.”

However, while it may be difficult to assess the focus of newer funders and individual donors on these approaches, survey respondents report high levels of long-term and unrestricted funding, as part of a trend across philanthropy overall to move toward trust-based practices. The majority of survey respondents (62 percent) reported that at least half of their 2021–2022 democracy-related grants are multiyear versus one year or less. Similarly, the vast majority (72 percent) report that at least half their grants are for general operating support.

Increasingly, it appears that multiyear grants and general operating support are becoming normalized among institutional funders of democracy work. For example, among foundations that made confidential 2017–2018 internal data available, the majority reported higher rates of both general support and multiyear grants in 2021–2022 than appears in their grantmaking data for the prior period.

As one respondent noted:

“[The foundation] started supporting grantees in the longer term after the 2016 election because [its staff] were concerned that the issue of voting rights was not going away. [The staff] listened to [its] grantees about the need for consistent, multiyear funding and now [the foundation is] approaching more of [its] democracy funding from a long-term perspective.”

Despite these trends, grantees continue to voice the need for more long-term support, and more improvements in this regard may well be warranted. For instance, in internal grant data for select foundations, we found that while 50 percent of democracy-related grants made in 2021–2022 were for at least 24 months, just 23 percent of grants exceeded two years, and less than 10 percent of grants exceeded three years.

Additionally, the length of grants likely differs across issue areas. For instance, in reviewing confidential 2021–2022 grantmaking data for select foundations, grants for voting rights and voter engagement work were 15 percent shorter on average (18 months) than all other grants (21 months), while those for civil liberties and rule of law were 22 percent longer on average (26 months).

Stakeholders Continue to be Concerned about Timing of Funding and 501(c)(4) Funding Levels

Interviewees and survey respondents also shared concerns about the timing of field funding. Many noted that funding often reaches grantees too late to be most useful, especially in the context of election-related funding. Some also reported feeling that 501(c)(4) funding levels are too low overall. Unlike 501(c)(3) funding, 501(c)(4) funding enables social welfare organizations to engage in unlimited lobbying activities related to the organization’s exempt purpose and engage in limited partisan activity, such as endorsing candidates or conducting get-out-the-vote campaigns based on party affiliation, though such partisan activities cannot be its primary purpose.12)

Survey respondents note a trend toward grants coming later within election cycles, as funders increasingly take a “wait and see” approach before setting funding strategies, in hopes of better targeting funds to areas of greatest need and opportunity. While this can enable responsiveness to emerging challenges, it can also make it difficult for grantees and funders alike to plan ahead and leverage funding fully. In the words of one respondent: “I worry about funding moving too late, when groups need early resources to be most effective and impactful.”

Some evidence bears this out. For instance, one interviewee from a funding intermediary, in reviewing funding flows, noted that “there is a drop-off in democracy funding across the board and it’s coming in later…” However, the same interviewee also noted that “things always drop off and then pick back up later,” suggesting increased funding levels could be expected to eventually materialize, albeit with shifts in timing.

There is a perception that this trend is especially true for funding from individual donors. However, it is apparent even in institutional philanthropy. Many survey respondents described their own approach in similar ways, noting that with current information they aren’t yet ready to lock in strategies for the 2023–2024 cycle. For instance, one respondent shared: “Depending on emerging threats we may increase funding in certain areas to meet the moment. It is still too early to know.”

Funders also note concern that work to promote a healthy democracy has too little 501(c)(4) funding and share a perception that “anti-democracy” efforts are better resourced in this regard. Of those surveyed, most respondents (74 percent, 26 of 35) indicated they do not have an affiliated 501(c)(4) that funds democracy-related work. Respondents that do (23 percent, eight of 35) reported just over $105 million in annual 501(c)(4) funding for related activities in 2021– 2022.13 Just 12 of the 141 funders (9 percent) included in the survey distribution have easily identifiable 501(c)(4) affiliates.

This point was reinforced by a representative from a pooled fund who noted “a lot of funders are not experienced with the (c)(4) side.” One interviewee shared that their “biggest criticism of the democracy field is that there isn’t more (c)(4) funding. (c)(3) funders aren’t sufficient.”

Some stakeholders note that some newer funders to the field — particularly individual donors who have traditionally engaged in campaign and political funding — have brought more 501(c)(4) funding to the table. However, stakeholders also convey some wariness that these trends could amplify perceptions that the field is becoming increasingly political or partisan.

Field Focal Areas

Democracy Field Shifting and Maturing to Respond to Emerging Threats

KEY FINDINGS IN THIS SECTION

  • Voting and elections issues remain core to the field. Survey respondents cited efforts to protect voting rights (76 percent), election administration (73 percent), and voter engagement (86 percent) most often when describing work they funded in 2021–2022.
  • Survey respondents note strong and increasing support for newer focal areas, with 70 percent reporting funding for social and racial justice work and 59 percent reporting funding for media policy and misinformation and disinformation.
  • Many of the same issues are viewed as being underfunded, with media policy and misinformation/disinformation and election administration cited most often as areas in need of greater attention and focus from funders.

The democracy funding field includes a broad and growing array of focal areas, actors, and funders. The set of issues seen by funders as core to the health of democracy includes many that have long been the focus of field efforts, while also incorporating newer foci that have emerged in response to evolving threats to democratic institutions and processes. Some recent foci relate to threats that predate our institutions themselves, such as white supremacy and racial inequity, which philanthropy has historically played a role in exacerbating. Others target newer trends resulting from rapid technological change.

Given this shifting landscape and the increasing understanding of the fundamental role a healthy democracy plays in ensuring effective outcomes in other issue areas, it can be difficult to neatly define what constitutes “democracy-related work.” Unsurprisingly, many stakeholders report confusion — and even frustration — in trying to navigate the space and their role in it.

This section of the report details the areas of democracy-related work included in this study and how this set of focal areas has evolved over time. It also provides insights on the relative attention that different sub-issues have received and notes where increased attention from funders may be warranted.

Democracy Field Maturing to Include New Focal Areas, Greater Intersectionality

In order to better understand the current field of democracy philanthropy today, there must first be a clear understanding of what that field includes. Unfortunately, field stakeholders note the lack of a broadly shared definition for what falls within the boundaries of democracy work today — often leading to questions and confusion.

In 2015, Candid worked with a broad set of field stakeholders to develop a seminal shared taxonomy of issue areas included in the democracy field.14To date, this taxonomy remains the most widely used. However, in more recent years — particularly in response to major events and emerging threats since 2016 — the field has developed newer focal areas that were not explicitly included in this prior taxonomy. In many cases, areas of work that were previously understood as sub-fields or minor foci — perhaps as a part of other definitions or captured in Candid’s “Other” category — require more dedicated categorization today.

For the purposes of this study, we worked with a collection of stakeholders in the funder community to develop potential updates to the Candid taxonomy that could account for recent trends and newer focal areas. The resulting taxonomy, described in detail in the

Appendix, includes several areas of new and increased focus in recent years, including:

  • Ensuring an effective census and redistricting process
  • Promoting racial and social justice
  • Preventing political violence and anti-hate efforts
  • Tracking and combating misinformation and disinformation

In addition to a changing landscape of focal areas within democracy work, stakeholders also note a greater understanding of the fact that democracy-related work is deeply intertwined with other issue areas, which is seen as a significant cause for recent funding growth. For instance, some funders may invest in voter education and outreach in order to catalyze action on climate change. Others may fund government effectiveness and reform efforts in order to support better administration of programs of interest, such as the implementation of new federal funding for infrastructure.

These types of investments from funders seeking impact in other areas are becoming more common. One survey respondent shared that more funders are entering the space because “there is an appreciation that progress cannot be made on other issues (health, climate) without philanthropic attention on underlying democracy issues.” This has brought more engagement in democracy work, but also contributes to perceived confusion over what types of work and funders are or are not included in the conception of the field.

CATEGORIES OF DEMOCRACY WORK INCLUDED IN SURVEY

Voting and Elections†

  • Voting Rights†
  • Voter Education and Engagement†
  • Election Administration
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting

Inclusion, Equity, and Justice*

  • Social and Racial Justice*
  • Social Cohesion and Polarization*
  • Political Violence and Anti-Hate*

Civic Education and Participation†

  • Civic Education and Leadership
  • Public and Issue Based
  • Participation‡
  • Census*

Government Effectiveness and Democracy Protection†

  • Civil Rights/Liberties and Rule of Law†
  • Government Oversight and Reform‡

Media and Information Ecosystem†

  • Journalism‡
  • Media Policy and Mis/ Disinformation†

General/Non-Issue Specific*

Other Issues

Differences from Candid’s original taxonomy of democracy-related funding

* Not previously included as a dedicated category

† Updated title only

‡ New category created by combining existing categories

Full definitions for each category, as provided to survey participants, are included in Appendix.

Broad Engagement Across Issue Areas, Including Newer Foci

Survey respondents supported a wide breadth of issues in 2021–2022, with each area of work receiving support from many funders.

Among our survey respondents, voter education and engagement (86 percent, 32 of 37), voting rights (76 percent, 28 of 37), and election administration (73 percent, 27 of 37) were the most commonly funded areas in the democracy space in 2021–2022. These issues have seen larger investment in recent years. For instance, campaigns, elections, and voting issues accounted for just 9 percent of all democracy funding recorded by Candid in 2016, while funding for these issues increased to 26 percent in 2020.

The survey also shows significant interest and support for issues that were not historically core areas of field focus. Nearly 70 percent of respondents (26 of 37) report having funded social and racial justice work in the 2021–2022 cycle; this area has not always been considered by philanthropy, with its historically white and elite biases, as a dedicated category of work. Additionally, 59 percent (22 of 37) report funding for media policy and combating misinformation and disinformation, while 54 percent (20 of 37) report funding for journalism. These are areas that have matured alongside the fast-evolving media, technology, and information landscape.

Bar charts show that funders support a wide variety of pro-democracy issue areas, with election issues such as Voter Education/Engagement and Voting Rights attracting the greatest support, and Campaign Finance, the Census, and Government Oversight/Reform receiving the least.

However, when reviewing internal grant data from a sample of 12 foundations, including 2,403 grants totaling $1.1 billion, we found that the volume and funding across these categories varied significantly.

For instance, in this sample, areas with far more grants and funding include social and racial justice work and public and issue-based participation. By contrast, voting rights, voter education and engagement, and election administration have fewer grants and less funding, despite the largest number of funders having reporting funding in these areas in our survey.

Areas with the smallest number of grants and far less funding in this sample included those that are off cycle, such as redistricting and census, as well as areas that are more targeted in nature, such as social cohesion and anti-hate. These analyses are highly dependent on the accuracy of issue-coding performed by our team, based on reading grant purpose statements provided directly by funders.

Of funders that reported increased funding in the 2021–2022 cycle relative to the 2019–2020 cycle, many explicitly noted increased focus on racial justice issues, COVID-19 related issues, and misinformation and disinformation.

Some areas of work that had attracted a greater share of efforts to promote a healthy democracy in prior eras — such as campaign finance and government oversight and reform work — were supported by a minority of survey respondents in the 2021–2022 cycle and appear lower in the sample of internal grant data. Interestingly, of the 12 survey respondents who report they have funded causes in the democracy space for less than five years, none reported having funded these areas in 2021–2022.

These newer funders were slightly more likely to report having funded voting rights, voter engagement, and election administration efforts than did legacy funders. They also reported especially heavy engagement in newer field focal areas like social and racial justice, as well as misinformation and disinformation.

Bar charts compare funding for 16 pro-democracy issues and show that Public and Issue-Based Participation received the most funding at $412 million, while the Census received the least at just $2 million.

Funders Note Greater Attention Needed on Media Issues and Election Administration

Survey respondents note a broad range of potential areas of need for the field moving forward, underscoring the diversity of interests and approaches across funders working in the democracy field. When asked which areas of democracy-related work need greater attention from funders, no area received more than 50 percent of responses.

Issues relating to building a healthy information ecosystem rise to the top as needing greater attention. This includes media policy, misinformation, and disinformation (38 percent, 20 of 53) as well as journalism (28 percent, 15 of 53). Two more respondents used the open-ended response to specifically note artificial intelligence and algorithms as areas of concern, which may be considered as possible sub-issues within the misinformation and disinformation space.

Given that these media and technology-related issues are newer areas of focus generally, these findings may be unsurprising and suggest room for continued growth and engagement. Importantly, some respondents noted significant new initiatives, investments, and engagement in these areas. And many conveyed optimism that related work will continue to grow and attract more funders.

The second largest number of respondents (36 percent, 19 of 53) note election administration as needing greater focus. This aligns with both the growing threats to fair elections seen in recent years as well as with concerns shared by field stakeholders that some funders may incorrectly believe these threats are now behind us. One funder noted that “election security is not well funded. The integrity of elections and elected officials being supported is not something that often comes to mind in the democracy space.”

 Bar charts report which pro-democracy issues funders believe need more attention. Mis/Disinformation and Election Administration were cited most often as needing greater attention with 20 and 19 responses respectively.

New Actors and Infrastructure

Growing Role of Newer Funders and Intermediaries

KEY FINDINGS IN THIS SECTION

  • The rise of authoritarianism is not the only driving factor in bringing newer funders to the field. Concerns about attacks on democratic institutions and the interests and experience of new internal staff are also driving entrants to the space.
  • New entrants to the democracy funding field find relationships and networking to be most helpful to success in their early years, followed by access to relevant research and fresh perspectives from new staff and board members.
  • The number and role of funding intermediaries is growing, offering benefits, such as grantmaking convenience, and challenges, such as greater complexity of options.

Newer democracy field funders — institutional funders and individual donors that have begun funding democracy-related work in the past five years — have contributed to growth of the democracy field as well as its increased complexity. The field today consists of a more varied set of funders, engaged on a wider set of issues, and exhibiting a broader set of motivations and interests.

Additionally, there are more resources and infrastructure for funders, including growth in the size and number of funding intermediaries. These allow for coordination and alignment across this ecosystem — from rapid- response pooled funds supporting election security to networks for building learning communities around civic engagement and political polarization. This growth has allowed the field to become more dynamic and complex.

Field stakeholders are now beginning to grasp the threats and opportunities that this growth in diversity, dynamism, and complexity may mean for the future of the field. Several lingering questions we encountered are:

  • Whether newer funders will remain in the field
  • Which resources may be most useful for keeping them in the field
  • The best strategies to build a philanthropic community that can welcome these newer funders and their unique value adds

Different stakeholders are exploring how to optimize the benefits of increased field infrastructure, while avoiding the unintended complexity. One of these is increased anonymity for individual funders and therefore less transparency about who is funding whom, at what level, and what subtopics they are supporting.

This section of the report examines the perceptions and experiences of newer funders. It seeks to identify what is known and less apparent about their motivations and interests, and it explores the growing role of intermediaries in this developing ecosystem.

Rise of Authoritarianism Not the Only Driving Factor in Bringing Newer Funders to the Field

To understand the experiences and motivations of newer funders, and to compare these with perceptions held by legacy funders about newer funders, the survey asked parallel questions of each group. In many important areas, these perceptions differ from reality, leaving important opportunities for improving communication and understanding between groups.

Bar charts compare the perspectives of legacy funders and new funders on the obstacles to funding democracy-related activities. 61% of Legacy Funders believe information/resources to be the biggest challenge, while just 40% of new funders agree. Political perceptions featured the largest gap between legacy funders (55%) and new funders (30%).

Legacy funders’ perspectives on why new funders have entered the space and the barriers to entry they have faced differ from the experiences shared by newer funders. Nearly half of legacy funders (18 of 37) noted changes in the national political landscape — particularly factors related to the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. — as the main driver for newer funders entering the space, while more than half (53 percent) cited political perceptions about the work as likely the main barrier to entry. By contrast, just 17 percent of newer funders (two of 12) cited authoritarianism as a motivation, and only 25 percent (three of 12) cited political perceptions as a barrier.

Though these gaps may be due to reluctance among respondents in sharing motivations that could be construed as political in nature, the motivations newer funders did share ultimately showed wider variety than the perceptions shared by legacy funders. In their survey responses, new funders cite varied reasons for entering the field, including concerns about attacks on democratic institutions more broadly, the interests and experience of new internal staff or leadership, along with Trump-related issues.

For Newer Funders, Relationships and Networking are Key

Legacy funders and new funders alike understand the importance of networking and connections for new entrants. When asked which factors helped most when they decided to start funding democracy work, 67 percent (eight of 12) of newer funders cited networks and connections as the most important. One newer funder noted in an interview that, after the chaotic “panic” of 2020 had subsided, they found that it became much easier to engage more meaningfully in the space as other field stakeholders have had more capacity to engage and welcome them.

Bar charts show that legacy funders and new funders largely agree on helpful assets. Network/Connections are viewed as most helpful by both legacy funders (89%) and new funders (73%).

Newer Field Funders Display Wide Range of Backgrounds and Interests

Newer field funders differ in their interests, engagements to date, and plans for the future. They approach their philanthropic giving from a range of lenses: an issue area lens, a geographic lens, a project approach lens, and a racial equity lens, among others. Several interviewees noted that some new funders make grant decisions based on the secondary impact that a stronger, more inclusive democracy could create. For instance, some democracy grants could help ensure clean energy investments are effectively implemented, and others could help foster thriving local economies. As one survey respondent described it, “There has been increasing awareness and alarm about the threats to our democracy and this has attracted new funders to the field — funders who are able to see how the health of our democracy underpins and connects to other issue areas.”

Given the breadth of approaches funders take, it is important not to view them as a single homogenous group. Instead, we looked at different new funder profiles to better understand their experiences, described below. These newer funders include both institutional funders and individual donors, generally with slightly different but overlapping motivations:

  • Institutional funders — registered foundations with larger endowments and annual payouts and that are typically fully staffed. Many institutional funders have increased their annual grantmaking budget for democracy issues since 2016 and plan to maintain or increase funding in 2023–2024. A few others have shifted democracy grantmaking that was previously part of a temporary initiative or housed in a different portfolio area into a full, permanent program. Still others had never previously funded democracy-related activities but have recently turned toward this work as an entirely new focal area.
  • Individual donors — who may have a registered foundation with little to no staff, or they may choose to give directly or through an intermediary such as a donor-advised fund. A number of high-net-worth individual donors recently entered the field, and stakeholders often note three key categories as being particularly prevalent: those with inherited wealth,15 wealthy executives from the finance world,16 and newly wealthy technology executives from Silicon Valley. Individual donors support work across the full spectrum of democracy sub-areas, although many have focused on funding democracy work with a technology, social entrepreneurship, and data-forward lens. While some individual donors may have established funding strategies, their giving also has been described as more nimble and responsive to their interest and needs of the moment. Some see individual donors as being more short-term focused.

Whether institutional funders or individual donors, many come to democracy issues from different backgrounds and motivations. Below are additional categories that can describe some of these newer field funders. These are based on survey responses from those who report having funded democracy-related causes for five years or fewer, qualitative discussions with stakeholders who regularly engage with and support newer field funders, and independent research. These categories are intended to be neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive.

  • Place-based funders — a number of typically local, state, or regionally focused funders have begun to support democracy efforts in their priority geographies, including work such as civic participation, voting rights, and local journalism. For instance, some groups funded census outreach and community organizing around redistricting during the 2020–2022 census and redistricting cycle. Some have even shifted to funding such work beyond their regional focus.
  • Issue-based funders — those focused on one or more specific non-democracy issue areas, who have more recently come to democracy work as a lever for seeking impact on those issues. In some cases, this may be in response to decades of inaction and frustration, and a perception that new strategies must be considered (this is the case among many climate funders). In other cases, it may be in support of more acute needs in response to external policy changes or threats (such as among recent field entrants focused on protecting reproductive rights). For example, one newer funder who had previously focused primarily on social entrepreneurship and innovation explained that “everything we want to do requires the government to either enable it or to amplify it through scaling effective solutions, so we realized that democracy is critical to any progress.”
  • Social justice funders — as the definition of democracy funding has broadened to include social and racial justice as prime focal areas, this has enabled longtime social justice funders to be brought more fully into democracy funding networks. Additionally, some funders deepened their social and racial justice work following the murder of George Floyd and in response to inequities that became more stark during the COVID-19 pandemic. In many cases, this deepening justice work included greater investment in initiatives on voting, elections, civil rights, and related issues alongside movement-building efforts.
  • Political funders — those individual funders or organizations that have been major partisan donors or fundraisers to individual campaigns, PACs, and super PACs have more recently begun to engage in nonpartisan democracy work. For instance, Way to Win, a progressive political fundraising hub, recently established a 501(c)(3) grantmaking operation, Way to Rise, which has distributed over $5 million to state and local nonprofits working on co-governance, voter protection and education, and narrative change.17

One funder shared their interpretation of growth and evolution of the field over this time period: “My mental model on funders in the last five years in the democracy space is that there were legacy funders (anyone in space before 2017); then there was a rush of funders who came in around 2017/2018; then there was another wave of funders who have come in in the last two to four years who had been dipping their toes in the water a little bit, but have now evolved to more stable funders in the space.”

Newer funders, especially individual donors, have much to offer the democracy field. These contributions bring new perspectives on sub-issues like misinformation and disinformation and media policy, the ability to experiment with entrepreneurial policy reform and interventions, and the ability to provide 501(c)(4) support. Funders moving into the democracy field from other areas also have a different set of expectations than do legacy funders, drawn from their experiences funding other fields. Moving forward, it is critical to determine the best strategies to leverage the strengths of an array of types of new funders in the field.

Number and Role of Funding Intermediaries Growing

As the democracy funding field has grown, the number of pooled funds, regranting organizations, and other intermediaries has also grown, bringing new benefits and challenges. Intermediaries play an increasingly significant role in managing and directing funding to democracy organizations. These vehicles have increased grantmaking convenience, effectiveness, and reporting for funders, and reduced administrative burdens for grantees. They also have served as critical low-barrier entry points for newer field funders. However, some stakeholders have noted that the increased number of intermediaries has caused some unnecessary complexity. At times, this has created difficulties for both newer and more legacy funders in navigating available options.

Growth in the number and scale of intermediaries is seen as a direct result of the growth of funding from individual donors, given the role of intermediaries as aggregators of funding across multiple donors as well as providers of confidentiality to the sources of funding. Evidence of the growth of funding intermediaries is largely drawn from publicly available information and reporting. It includes:

  • Donor collaboratives and pooled funds are growing in size and number — In our research, Democracy Fund identified 74 funds and collaboratives for democracy-related work at the national level, half of which (41) launched in the years since 2016. Many of these include both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) affiliates, making the full list of funds and organizations even larger, without even taking into account the numerous state and regional funds. Pre-existing funds continue to grow as well. For instance, 40 percent of all giving since 2010 from the State Infrastructure Fund ($56 million of $141 million) was raised during the 2020 election run-up. The Fund’s number of donors has also increased dramatically — from five institutional funders and individual donors in 2010 to 13 in 2017 to 41 as of July 2021. While difficult to estimate, it is likely many hundreds of millions of dollars flow through or are organized by these entities.
  • Donor-advised funds have been a major source of funding growth — Of the $917 million that Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s donor-advised funds have distributed to democracy issues since 2011, over $541 million was donated during the 2019–2020 cycle. This aligns with exponential growth in giving to donor-advised funds more broadly — which has more than quintupled over the past decade — including in 2020, when major donor- advised fund sponsor Fidelity Charitable became the top recipient of charitable giving.18
  • Fiscal sponsors are growing in size — The Sixteen Thirty Fund, a major fiscal sponsor, experienced a tenfold increase in expenditures for consulting firm Arabella Advisors’ services from 2014 to 2019, signaling a large increase in the amount of funds flowing through the hub.19
  • Community foundations are increasing their democracy portfolios — Many regional community foundations have more recently focused on funding democracy work — both within their geographies and nationally — as donors have shown increasing interest in these areas. One interviewee described that their community foundation used to have a small grantmaking portfolio on democratic values, but expanded this focus in the wake of the 2016 election to support census work regionally, as well as national democracy organizations. Since then, it has found this work has helped attract new donors.

Intermediary Funder Benefits

Intermediaries function in different ways that may be attractive to potential funders. They serve as important entry points for newer field funders — narrowing and clarifying grantmaking options, making the complex field easier to navigate, and generally acting as a fund manager. Some of the value that intermediaries offer new funders includes, but is not limited to:

  • Economies of scale — intermediaries provide a structure for giving in ways that individual foundations might not be able to pursue on their own. They have the ability to give a large number of small grants to organizations at the state and local level, which might otherwise pose administrative or relationship management difficulties for national foundations or those with small staffs. They also have both the scale and flexibility needed to be effective in rapid response situations. For instance, the Trusted Elections Fund was able to respond to security threats during the 2020 election, and the Fair Representation in Redistricting pooled fund swiftly provided needed support in response to legal and political developments across states during the 2020–2022 redistricting cycle.20
  • Amplified impact — pooling funds can mean that any individual funder can leverage their giving against that of others, amplifying impact while mitigating risk. Individual grantmakers can report to internal stakeholders about the accomplishments of the full fund, showing the role of their funding in helping achieve larger-scale impact. This can be helpful in unlocking even larger grantmaking budgets in the future. It can also enable program officers and directors to take on more risk than they would if they were operating alone, especially in newer democracy topics like electoral reform.
  • Peer learning networks — intermediaries open doors to other funders, grantee organizations, field experts, and scholars, helping create peer networks and learning communities. These can be formal and informal processes of information exchange that newer funders or smaller foundations may not have capacity to manage on their own. This can be a particularly important benefit for newer funders seeking to build connections. These networks also provide infrastructure for identifying trends across funders, enabling intermediaries to create funding vehicles that are responsive to evolving interests.
  • Tailored approaches — intermediaries are able to leverage the terminology, strategy, and approaches that the particular donors they serve feel most comfortable and aligned with. For instance, one interviewee at a funding intermediary explained how, because the vast majority of their fund’s donors are private equity investors, they approach their national coordination efforts like running a private equity or venture capital fund as an “activist investor.” Their team members sit on nonprofit boards, hold weekly check-in and briefing calls, and advise state campaigns and try to coordinate across states — all as strategies that their donors recognize and appreciate.
  • Anonymity — funders who wish to remain unnamed for their philanthropic giving can achieve confidentiality by working with donor-advised funds, fiscal sponsors, community foundations, and other types of intermediaries. This is particularly relevant in the democracy space, where funders and grantees are often subject to threats of political violence and other risks.

Rapid Growth of Intermediaries Raises Perceived Tensions

Even with the long list of benefits that intermediaries offer, stakeholders also have noted concerns that rapid growth in the number and role of pooled funds and other intermediaries can create challenges. These can include:

  • Complexity among intermediaries — while intermediaries are intended to help simplify options for donors, navigating the universe of intermediaries can prove challenging in itself. Some note the proliferation of funding vehicles with overlapping missions and foci can make it difficult especially for newer funders to parse differences and make strategic investment decisions.
  • Perceived tensions with legacy approaches — where intermediaries serve a wave of newer field funders, often with approaches and interests different from those of legacy funders, intermediaries change their approaches to match. And pooled fund staff may have different backgrounds or expertise than other field funders, which may result in conflicting strategy. With the collective amount of funds these intermediaries administer growing significantly, these changes can alter overall field funding approaches, which has made some legacy funders wary.
  • Competition drives misaligned incentives — intermediaries compete for funding from donors, and therefore may be incentivized to develop strategies and approaches that are inherently distinct from and, at times, in tension with those of other funds. This competitive landscape also requires funds to focus on proving impact. Some stakeholders have noted concerns over a growing emphasis on having grantees produce administratively burdensome quantitative impact data.

Broadly, intermediaries play the role of working across and with the heterogeneity of a field with a wide variety of funders. This is a major undertaking, and one that should not be taken lightly. In all, intermediaries present more benefits than concerns; however, they do introduce complexity to the field.

Looking Ahead

Impact, Opportunity, and the Value of Community Building

The constellation of foundations, donors, nonprofits, and grantees focused on the support and promotion of democracy in the U.S. has shifted significantly since 2016. The result is a field that has grown, matured, and become more impactful. The reasons for this dynamic growth are numerous and multifaceted. These include concerns over election interference, the rise of authoritarianism, growing polarization and division, the growing threat of misinformation, disinformation, and the troubling media landscape. Newer support spans that for engagement in the 2020 Census and ensuing redistricting, to election administration and protection efforts in the context of a global pandemic, to deepening efforts aimed at advancing social and racial justice in the wake of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd, and more.

For many, this period of transformation has raised significant questions about the future of the pro-democracy philanthropic field. Rapid growth in response to critical events and crises can just as easily be matched by rapid contraction particularly when it is perceived — correctly or incorrectly — that the crisis moment has passed. And early fundraising challenges experienced by grantees for nonpartisan work related to the 2023–2024 election cycle contributes to these concerns, despite our survey showing strong funding trends among institutional philanthropy. Growing pains can also take the form of inefficiencies, redundancies, and unnecessary complexity that can make a field less effective and blunt impact. Consequently, field stakeholders are wary.

Fortunately, stakeholders overwhelmingly share reasons for optimism: more funding and partners overall, a more mature and varied field, a more comprehensive understanding of how to bolster democracy for impact on a range of issues, and several critical recent examples of impact in spite of perceived challenges. Growth has created significant opportunities to expand and deepen important work in a host of areas — universally cited by survey respondents as cause for excitement about the field’s potential.

Only now, several years into this period of transition, can field stakeholders begin to understand the scope and impact of these changes, and to identify how best to capitalize on growth in ways that promote long-term field health, funding sustainability, and increased collective impact. And overwhelmingly, stakeholders agree: We must start with better information about what the field looks like today, and what we can expect for tomorrow. Stakeholders want to understand the diversity of the field, create collaborative environments, consider the sequencing of funding activities, and adopt strategies that reinforce one another. All are eager for more information that can help make sense of this new landscape, including the wealth of new opportunities it holds.

Potential Opportunities for Field Strengthening and Community Building

As the democracy field continues to grow and mature, additional needs have emerged to ensure that efforts to protect and strengthen American democracy are maximally effective. Opportunities include:

  • Community building — several formal initiatives foster community in the democracy space — networks like Democracy Funders Network and the Funders Committee for Civic Participation as well as pooled funds and associated programming. However, funder experiences may vary, and some stakeholders have noted that well-known funders may have a more welcoming experience entering the field than smaller, lesser-known funders. Regardless, there is space to help funders better connect, to strengthen entry points for newer funders, and to build a strong identity for and community of “democracy funders.”
  • Understanding grantee experiences — it will also be critical to engage with grantee organizations to understand their needs and experiences and enable them to better communicate their goals and crystallize their strategies (e.g., short versus long term, offensive versus defensive) to funders. With so much rapid change in the funding landscape, the experience of grantee organizations and their engagement with the funding ecosystem has changed too, and it will be important to understand especially where new pain points exist. After all, funding in this space is in service of the work grantees do.
  • Defining democracy work — though the available field research and array of publicly available funding strategies have grown significantly, further research is still needed to provide more clarity. This could include:
    • Developing a detailed definition of U.S. democracy work that is shared by a broad set of field stakeholders, and that builds on and updates existing typologies
    • Concise mapping of field actors and their foci, with a particular focus on mapping pooled funds and intermediaries, and their distinct purposes to help especially newer funders navigate the landscape
    • Landscape research on individual high-net-worth donors to pro-democracy causes across the ideological spectrum, including their funding and foci as of 2023
    • Landscaping research and communications on the “anti-democracy” space, including foci, major funders, and emerging trends
  • Strengthening coordination — the field’s rapid growth and the need for both short-term, responsive funding strategies (such as ensuring the security of election administrators in 2020) and for long-term planning (such as supporting advocacy to enact ranked-choice voting in a certain number of states over the next decade) requires regular, precise coordination. Democracy organizations and funders could benefit from consistent, well-maintained coordination mechanisms, including coordination tables, convenings, and shared initiatives. More data is needed, but this could include some level of consolidation across pooled funds and grantees — such as ensuring that there is not an excess of pooled funds supporting a particular subfield.
  • Identifying and filling gaps — funders largely agree that there are key subfields of democracy work that are significantly underfunded, namely election administration, combating misinformation and disinformation, and local journalism. Reasons for inadequate funding may vary but include lack of resources for funders or conception of the issue as being part of “democracy funding.” Creating consistent platforms to share information about new efforts and initiatives in these areas, alongside building theories of change (such as Press Forward), can ensure that these sub-issues continue to grow at an appropriate pace.21

Conclusion

This report represents a critical step in providing a more comprehensive understanding of the shifting field of democracy philanthropy in the United States: where it has been, where it may be headed, and how funder perceptions and realities on the ground compare. Yet questions persist, and further research and data collection are no doubt needed. To continue to grow in a way that meets the needs of the field, this moment and beyond, will require that we first develop a better shared understanding of who we are as a community, and how best to grow together — newer funders and legacy funders alike.

Appendix

Methodology

The objectives of this research project were to map and better understand the field of pro-democracy funding. Specifically, this project sought to understand the following aspects of the democracy funding space:

  • The magnitude of the field in terms of total funding per year
  • Historical changes in the size of the field, particularly from 2017–2018 to 2021–2022 and into 2023–2024
  • Expectations around whether current funding trends will continue and emerging trends in the field
  • Trends in the subtopics being funded and areas that are underfunded
  • Funder experiences, particularly those of new funders, in order to better grasp how anchor and legacy funders and existing intermediaries can pave the way for more funders to enter and/or maintain their philanthropic support for a healthy democracy

To achieve these objectives, we relied on a number of sources, including:

  1. Existing literature, including industry publications, field-level reports, journal articles, foundation websites, and media coverage
  2. Responses from surveys the team conducted among foundation leaders, foundations staff, and donor advisors
  3. Self-reported grant data from institutional funders
  4. Interviews with experts, intermediaries, and new funders in the field
  5. Grant data publicly available on Candid
  6. Confidential grant data from survey respondents who opted to share their data

Below, we list the process that the team followed and how these sources played a role in each phase.

Three Caveats to the Findings

  1. Sourcing of grant data: Because there are limited amounts of publicly available grant data for comparison, we placed a strong emphasis on sourcing that information directly from foundations. However, limited data from foundations meant that direct comparisons were more challenging.
  2. Response rates for self-reported data: Response rates to requests for self-reported data were moderate. As only 37 foundations provided an overall topline number for funding and 13 provided grant-level data, our findings may not fully represent trends in the field.
  3. Institutional funders and individual donors: Survey responses are from only institutional funders, not from individual donors. Given that institutional funders are more visible through their online presence, their reputation, and their time in the field, they were more accessible for purposes of this survey research. Individual donors tend to use funding methods that help maintain their anonymity, and they were therefore challenging to fully include in this research, aside from anecdotal data that we sourced through interviews with intermediaries. For this reason, it is possible that the magnitude and growth rate defined in the report are, to some extent, underestimated.

Because of the gaps in the information the team was able to access, the team relied on informed estimates to reach our conclusions about the size of the field and its growth since 2016.

Existing Literature

We identified and reviewed more than 40 articles, reports, and website pages about the pro-democracy field and funding landscape. This process was designed to provide an initial, high-level understanding about perceptions in this space, identify major funders and intermediaries to include in interviews and surveys, and develop hypotheses that guided the rest of this research process. These sources are cited in a later part of the Appendix.

Interviews with the Experts

While conducting the literature review, we sat down with 17 individuals to hear firsthand about their experience in the field. These include foundation leaders and staff, donor advisors, community foundation leaders and staff, and heads of pooled funds. The insights from these conversations helped inform the design of the surveys that were subsequently conducted.

Survey Data

We conducted two different surveys: one to foundation leaders and a separate one to foundation staff. The leaders and the staff surveys were sent to 144 institutional funders. The distribution list included those previously known to Democracy Fund as supporting democracy-related work along with several that are included in the Candid’s database of democracy-related grants.

  • The leaders survey received 53 responses (38 percent response rate)
  • The staff survey received 34 responses (24 percent response rate)
  • Five additional foundations shared topline information via email, rather than completing the full survey; these were treated as survey responses

Many questions did not make answering mandatory, so the number of funders who responded to any individual question varies. For instance, while 70 funders completed some amount of one or more surveys, only 37 of these funders provided data on topline funding amounts for 2021–2022.

Based on anecdotal data and interview responses, nonresponses to the survey were often due to concerns about confidentiality and anonymity, and due to limited staff capacity.

Self-Reported Grant Data from Survey Respondents

The staff survey included a question asking respondents if they would be willing to share raw grant data that we could review more closely and to support more granular analyses. Twelve funders provided internal grant data in this way. This amounted to data on 2,403 grants across 12 funders, totaling $1.1 billion. To describe the breakdown of issues supported, we interpreted the purpose statements provided by the funders who submitted the data and hand-coded grants accordingly. This process is similar to that conducted by Candid staff for data included in Candid’s database; however, we believe the data gathered and coded by our team may be more up-to-date and exhaustive of democracy-related funding from these institutions, given that the funders themselves identified the relevant grants.

Given the small number of funders included in this sample, these grant data were used as a sample to validate findings and provide greater detail where appropriate, rather than as the basis for most findings.

Interviews with Newer Funders, Intermediaries, and Other Stakeholders

We met with 17 field stakeholders, including with newer funders and representatives of key intermediaries. During 45-minute interviews, we asked experts for their answers to the research questions of this report, describing the magnitude of the field, the directionality of the field, where most funding is flowing, where there are funding needs, what the experience of new funders looks like, and the role that intermediaries play in this space. Through this process, we compared the survey research findings to anecdotal evidence shared verbally during interviews, some of which validated the survey findings, and some of which added new information.

Candid Data

Data from Candid filled important gaps in our research where survey data were insufficient to answer the research questions. We accessed data on Candid on various occasions for various uses, for example:

  • To identify a broad list of funders in the democracy space that helped shape the list of institutional funders to receive the survey
  • To identify the potential size of funding in the field that was then adjusted with the error rate
  • To assess how the Candid data compared to self-reported foundation data in 2017–2018 and 2021–2022 for the purposes of understanding potential differences in how these datasets measure funding and develop a potentially more accurate picture of field funding

Defining the Field

Democracy Fund worked with internal experts to develop a taxonomy of democracy-related funding for use in our survey. To do this, we first assessed current taxonomies, including that developed by Candid in 2015, which remains the most widely used and cited. We then developed potential updates to these definitions to better match our understanding of current field foci — with the goal of developing categories and groupings that would make intuitive sense to survey respondents, while maintaining comparability with Candid data and categories where possible. We then discussed these categories with several leading funders to further hone the definitions and groupings. The resulting taxonomy, which was provided to survey respondents, is below.

These definitions are intended to encompass different types of work within each area — including action-focused initiatives on the ground, organizing and advocacy efforts, and academic and research-focused work.

Voting and Elections

  • Voting Rights: Supporting efforts to influence access, ability, and requirements to vote, including work on voting rights and voter ID requirements, and combating voter suppression efforts.
  • Voter Education and Engagement: Supporting efforts to inform and engage voters or mobilize voters to register to vote or participate in elections.
  • Election Administration: Supporting administration, policy, and/or reform efforts addressing voting systems and technologies; encouraging recruitment and training of a new generation of poll workers; and efforts to prevent election subversion.
  • Campaign Finance: Supporting research and/or reform efforts related to the financing of campaigns.
  • Redistricting: Supporting efforts to study and/or reform the redistricting process, including litigation.

Inclusion, Equity, and Justice

  • Social and Racial Justice: Supporting efforts to create a multiracial, inclusive democracy; combat structural racism; enable movement, power-building, and leadership development in historically marginalized communities, particularly communities of color; and support social justice efforts more broadly.
  • Social Cohesion and Polarization: Supporting efforts to create a shared sense of identity and purpose, promoting conversations around important issues within and/or across communities, and combating polarization.
  • Political Violence and Anti-Hate: Supporting efforts to prevent or mitigate political violence by addressing extremism and hate, promoting community resilience, and responding to trauma (individual and collective).

Civic Education and Participation

  • Civic Education and Leadership: Supporting non-election-related efforts to educate youth and the public about civic issues including the political process and governing institutions, as well as promoting diverse leadership development in public and civic life and capacity building for community leaders.
  • Public and Issue-Based Participation: Supporting non-election-related organizing, engagement, volunteerism, action around the policymaking process, naturalization efforts among legal permanent residents, or community life broadly or around specific issue areas or with specific constituencies.
  • Census: Supporting efforts to ensure a full and accurate census count, including policy and Get-Out-the-Count activities, and a timely and comprehensive release of the data.

Government Effectiveness and Democracy Protection

  • Civil Rights/Liberties and Rule of Law: Supporting work around the protection of civil rights and liberties and individual rights embodied in the Constitution, as well as efforts to uphold the rule of law.
  • Government Oversight and Reform: Supporting efforts to research and/or reform the government, and to improve performance and transparency overall and within each branch of government, including around budgeting and fiscal systems at all levels of government, and the courts.

Media and Information Ecosystem

  • Journalism: Supporting a broad range of efforts to promote a healthy journalism ecosystem and support local journalism, including efforts to educate and train journalists, support for news programs, investigative journalism, and documentary media, and efforts to expand tools and resources available to and used by journalists.
  • Media Policy and Mis/Disinformation: Supporting efforts related to media access, including work around media literacy and media justice, efforts to implement and/or reform media information policies such as related to freedom of expression and intellectual property, and efforts to track and combat mis- and disinformation.

General/Non-Issue Specific:

Supporting multi-issue or multidisciplinary efforts or organizations through general operating funds not tied to specific sub-issues.

Other Issues:

Supporting democracy-related activities in specific issue areas not included in other categories.

Estimating the Magnitude of the Field

To arrive at this report’s estimates for the size of the full field (based on the sample of funders included in Candid’s database for 2017–2018), we took the following steps:

  1. Understand Candid’s rate of undercounting — we compared the 2017–2018 self-reported funding levels from the confidential sample of 12 foundations for which data were available on background. This analysis showed that Candid data undercounted funding levels for these foundations by 34 percent on average.
  2. Adjust Candid data based on undercounting rate — we then collected all Candid data for 2017–2018 and adjusted these data using the 34 percent error rate to estimate a revised total funding level for 2017–2018.
  3. Estimate the size of the field in 2017–2018 — we combined these two datasets, using confidential internal data for foundations where available (assumed to be accurate) and adjusted Candid data for those where self-reported data were not available, to develop a full field magnitude in 2017–2018 of $5.2 billion.
  4. Estimate the growth rate from 2017–2018 to 2021–2022 — we compared real and estimated totals for 2017–2018 with self-reported funding totals for 2021–2022 provided by survey respondents (n = 37), to develop an estimated in-sample growth rate of 56 percent.
  5. Estimate the size of the field in 2021–2022 — assuming the growth rate was consistent across all funders included in Candid’s data for 2017–2018 (n = 9,144), we then applied that growth rate to the adjusted 2017–2018 data to develop an estimated total for 2021–2022 of $8.1 billion. We divided this number by two to approximate the annual size of the field at $4.1 billion (note: these numbers may not add due to rounding).

The methodology described above relies heavily on projections and estimates based on data from several years prior, given the limitations of comparable data from 2021–2022. As an alternative to this methodology, our team attempted to use data from Candid’s broader database as a proxy for data that appears missing from the dedicated democracy-related database. This included the following steps and findings:

  1. Understand the rate of undercounting from Candid’s broader database — we first compared self-reported funding totals drawn from our survey with “Democracy” and “Voter Rights” data for the same foundations from Candid’s broader database for 2021–2022. We found the Candid data in these categories undercounted funding among these institutions by about 39 percent — or rather than these categories are expected to only account for about 61 percent of all funding (for instance due to not including all relevant categories).
  2. Adjust Candid data based on undercounting rate — if we assume that rate to be consistent across all institutions with 2021–2022 funding for “Democracy” and “Voter Rights” in Candid’s database, that would yield an estimate of $5.7 billion in total field funding for 2021–2022. If instead we assume the Candid data captures 81 percent of true funding — half the difference as what was identified — that would yield an estimate of $4.7 billion in total field funding for 2021–2022.

Due to significant and opaque differences in categorization between the “Democracy” and “Voter Rights” categories and the broader and more tailored set of issues measured in our survey and in Candid’s dedicated democracy-related database, we chose not to include these estimates in our main report.

Citations from the Literature Review

The research team scraped the websites of six philanthropy and nonprofit sector publications and nine general news publications, as well as the websites of the 14 members of the Democracy Funders Collaborative. The team focused on materials relevant to funding for U.S. democracy, primarily within the last five years (since 2018). The sites and publications that the team searched are:

Philanthropy Sector Publications and Sites

  • Inside Philanthropy
  • The Chronicle of Philanthropy
  • Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR)
  • Nonprofit Quarterly
  • The Bridgespan Group
  • Websites of Democracy Funder Collaborative members
  • Scholars Strategy Network

General Publication Sites

  • The New York Times
  • The Washington Post
  • Politico
  • Vox
  • The Atlantic
  • The Economist
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • Insider
  • The New Yorker

Below is a list of the publicly available sources of 40+ articles, reports, and webpages used in the report literature review:

 

Article Title Publication/Source Date
Article Title

We the People: A Philanthropic Guide for Strengthening Democracy

Publication/Source

Democracy Fund and the Center for High-Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania

Date

2019

Article Title

Democracy-Focused Philanthropy: Choosing Operating Models for Deeper Impact

Publication/Source

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

Date

December 2022

Article Title

Our Divided Nation: Is There a Role for Philanthropy in Renewing Democracy?

Publication/Source

Kettering Foundation/Council on Foundations

Date

2019

Article Title

Democracy & Philanthropy: The Rockefeller Foundation and the American Experiment

Publication/Source

The Rockefeller Foundation

Date

2013

Article Title

The Roadmap for Local News: An Emergent Approach to Meeting Civic Information Needs

Publication/Source

MacArthur Foundation

Date

February 2023

Article Title

Slow and Steady Wins the Race: Ten Years of the State Infrastructure Fund

Publication/Source

State Infrastructure Fund

Date

July 2021

Article Title

Philanthropy to Protect US Democracy

Publication/Source

Stanford Social Innovation Review

Date

October 2022

Article Title

Voter Engagement Toolkit for Private Foundations

Publication/Source

Council on Foundations

Date

April 2018

Article Title

Foundations, It’s Time to Give 1% of Your Assets to Fix Democracy

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

December 2019

Article Title

Achieving Justice for All Should Command Philanthropy’s Attention in 2020 Elections

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

December 2019

Article Title

Democracy and Civic Life: What Is the Long Game for Philanthropy?

Publication/Source

Knight Foundation

Date

November 2020

Article Title

General Operating Proposal

Publication/Source

Protect Democracy

Date

June 2022

Article Title

On Democracy and Authoritarianism

Publication/Source

Protect Democracy

Date

No Date

Article Title

Donors Worry About a Cash Crunch for Voter Registration Groups

Publication/Source

The New York Times

Date

September 2022

Article Title

This Group Has $100 Million and a Big Goal: To Fix America

Publication/Source

The New York Times

Date

November 2022

Article Title

U-Va. is investing $100 million in saving democracy. Can it make a difference?

Publication/Source

The Washington Post

Date

June 2021

Article Title

Philanthropy Needs New Strategies to Save American Democracy

Publication/Source

Inside Philanthropy

Date

October 2022

Article Title

Democracy Frontlines Fund Realizes Transformative Philanthropy for Racial Justice

Publication/Source

Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR)

Date

Fall 2021

Article Title

Foundations Focus Their Attentions on Saving Democracy

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

January 2021

Article Title

Philanthropy Can Help Build a Thriving Democracy by Building Up Programs and Places That Fuel Civic Involvement

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

January 2022

Article Title

Can Philanthropy Save Democracy?

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

October 2019

Article Title

Foundations, the Solution to Our Democracy Deficit Lies in Plain Sight

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

May 2021

Article Title

To Protect Democracy, Funders Must Look to the States

Publication/Source

Inside Philanthropy

Date

March 2021

Article Title

Democracy Funders Are Forgetting About One of the Biggest Threats to Democracy

Publication/Source

Inside Philanthropy

Date

February 2022

Article Title

The Emerging Field of Political Innovation

Publication/Source

Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR)

Date

Spring 2023

Article Title

How Can Philanthropy Help Rehabilitate US Democracy?

Publication/Source

Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR)

Date

January 2021

Article Title

Democrats ‘Charity’ Voter-Registration Scheme

Publication/Source

The Wall Street Journal

Date

September 2022

Article Title

Mark Zuckerberg has donated $300 million to protect democracy despite Facebook’s record

Publication/Source

Vox

Date

September 2020

Article Title

Inside Mind the Gap, the secretive Silicon Valley group that has funneled over $20 million to Democrats

Publication/Source

Vox

Date

January 2020

Article Title

A new generation of philanthropists are ticked off at Trump — and their parents

Publication/Source

Vox

Date

January 2020

Article Title

Publishing C.E.O. Donates $500,000 to Fight Book Bans

Publication/Source

The New York Times

Date

February 2022

Article Title

The most powerful network of Democratic donors has a new president

Publication/Source

Politico

Date

September 2021

Article Title

Dems fear for democracy. Their big donors aren’t funding one of its main election groups

Publication/Source

Politico

Date

February 2022

Article Title

Philanthropy’s Agenda for Rebuilding Our Democracy

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

November 2020

Article Title

Philanthropy’s Stimulus Plan Must Bolster Democracy

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

April 2020

Article Title

Everything Philanthropy Cares About Depends on a Strong Democracy. Here’s What We Can Do to Stop the Deterioration

Publication/Source

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Date

October 2019

Article Title

116 Organizations Driving Change

Publication/Source

Medium

Date

July 2020

Article Title

Civic Engagement Grants

Publication/Source

Inside Philanthropy

Date

No Date

 

Overview of Survey Respondents

Funders who responded to the survey(s) reported annual democracy grantmaking budgets ranging from $902,000 per year to over $610 million annually and included both newer (less than five years in the field) and older (more than five years in the field) funders. The vast majority of respondents had funded democracy issues continuously for more than five years, and a plurality of respondents provided over $20 million in grants to democracy issues in 2021 2022.

Funders by 2021–2022 501(C)(3) Grantmaking Total
2021–2022 501(c)(3) Grantmaking Total Number of Funders in the Survey Sample Within Range Total Dollar Amount Given by Funders in this Category
2021–2022 501(c)(3) Grantmaking Total

$50 million

Number of Funders in the Survey Sample Within Range

8

Total Dollar Amount Given by Funders in this Category

$1,269,966,482

2021–2022 501(c)(3) Grantmaking Total

$20 million to $50 million

Number of Funders in the Survey Sample Within Range

8

Total Dollar Amount Given by Funders in this Category

$229,516,645

2021–2022 501(c)(3) Grantmaking Total

$10 million to $20 million

Number of Funders in the Survey Sample Within Range

8

Total Dollar Amount Given by Funders in this Category

$125,834,500

2021–2022 501(c)(3) Grantmaking Total

$5 million to $10 million

Number of Funders in the Survey Sample Within Range

5

Total Dollar Amount Given by Funders in this Category

$40,767,500

2021–2022 501(c)(3) Grantmaking Total

$5 million

Number of Funders in the Survey Sample Within Range

8

Total Dollar Amount Given by Funders in this Category

$16,837,000

  1. Any information included in this report which mentions an institution by name is drawn from publicly available sources and is not related to survey or interview. An overview of the literature review conducted is available in the Appendix. []
  2. Authors used two-year periods to account for cyclicality across years and compared 2017–2018 and 2021–2022 given data availability and to align with comparable off- year U.S. election cycles. []
  3. In 2013, eight institutional foundations, including Democracy Fund, provided seed funding to the Foundation Center, now Candid, to develop the Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy platform. These foundations also served on an advisory group to inform Candid’s framework for democracy-related issue areas. []
  4. In total, 70 funders provided qualitative or quantitative data for this report, though not all provided responses for all Of these, 37 funders provided data on funding totals for 2021–2022. This report leverages insights from all data collected, and samples for some insights will be larger or smaller than for others. []
  5. While these categories do not overlap perfectly with those used in the Candid’s dedicated democracy-related database, the vast difference suggests a large amount of funding data that has yet to be included. []
  6. As an alternative measure, our team attempted to align funding from Candid’s broader database with funding identified through our survey. When combining funding identified in our survey with that included in Candid’s broader database under the “Democracy” and “Voter Rights” categories, we find total known funding to be $4.1 billion. We chose to exclude this datapoint from the main report given differences in issue categories and definitions across sources. []
  7. Numbers may not add due to rounding. This estimate accounts only for funders with data available in Candid for 2017–2018 and does not account for any funders that were included in other years, for instance funders that more recently entered the field. The estimated 61 percent growth rate includes some funders that, according to Candid data, didn’t fund related work at all in 2017– 2018. If we remove these funders from the sample because, for instance, we think that the 2017–2018 data for these institutions should be higher than $0, the estimated growth rate would be 56 percent. When applied to the full sample, this would yield an estimated funding total of $6.7 billion in 2021–2022, as opposed to $6.9 billion. []
  8. To offer an alternative methodology for estimating the size of the field, we conducted a parallel analysis using data from the “Democracy” and “Voter Rights” categories of Candid’s broader funding database. This yielded a range of $4.7 billion to $5.7 billion in field funding in 2021–2022. Details and results of this analysis can be found in the Appendix. We chose not to include these estimates in the main report given differences in issue categories and definitions across sources. []
  9. “Giving USA: Total U.S. charitable giving declined in 2022 to $499.33 billion following two years of record generosity,” IUPUI School of Philanthropy, June 20, 2023, accessed August 29, 2023. Available at: https://philanthropy.iupui.edu/news-events/news- item/giving-usa:-total-u.s.-charitable-giving-declined-in-2022-to-%24499.33-billion-following-two-years-of-record-generosity. html?id=422#:~:text=Key%20findings%20from%20Giving%20USA,to%20U.S.%20charities%20in%202022. []
  10. Only five survey respondents shared 501(c)(4) funding figures for 2021–2022, totaling just $211 million. These data were not included in funding estimates, given the small sample size and lack of clarity on accuracy of inclusion of 501(c)(4) data in Candid. If, however, these survey data were included in these calculations — on assumption that Candid data for 2017–2018 appropriately accounts for 501(c)(4) funding — estimated in-sample growth between 2017–2018 and 2021–2022 would increase to 81 percent, rather than 61 percent. Estimated total field funding for 2021–2022 would increase to $7.8 billion, rather than $6.9 billion. []
  11. Cheryl Dorsey, Peter Kim, Cora Daniels, Lyell Sakaue, and Britt Savage, “Overcoming the Racial Bias in Philanthropic Funding,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, May 2020, accessed August Available at: https://doi.org/10.48558/7WB9-K440. []
  12. See Bolder Advocacy’s website for more information on the similarities and differences between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4 []
  13. Remaining respondent indicated they do not know if their organization has an affiliated 501(c)(4) funding organization. []
  14. To review Candid’s original issue taxonomy and definitions, click on the small Definitions link under the Subject Areas line on Candid’s democracy data tool page. []
  15. Theodore Schleifer, “A new generation of philanthropists are ticked off at Trump — and their parents,” Vox, January 2020, accessed August 2023. Available at: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/13/20827389/young-donors-philanthropists-resource-generation- politics-trump. []
  16. Karen Tumulty, “U-Va. is investing $100 million in saving democracy. Can it make a difference?,” The Washington Post, June 2021, accessed August 2023. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/03/uva-is-investing-100-million-saving- democracy-can-it-make-difference/. []
  17. See Way to Rise website for more []
  18. Chuck Collins and Helen Flannery, “The Rise of Monster DAFs,” Institute for Policy Studies, August 2022, accessed August 2023. Available at: https://ips-dc.org/the-rise-of-the-monster-dafs. []
  19. “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990),” Sixteen Thirty Fund, 2014–2019, accessed September 2023. []
  20. Find more information on Trusted Elections Fund and Fair Representation in Redistricting. []
  21. Elizabeth Green, Darryl Holliday, and Mike Rispoli, “The Roadmap for Local News: An Emergent Approach to Meeting Civic Information Needs,” MacArthur Foundation, February 2022, accessed August 2023. Available at: https://localnewsroadmap.org/ wp-content/uploads/2023/02/The-Roadmap-for-Local-News-Feb-2-23.pdf. []
Featured
Report

Democracy Hypocrisy: Examining America’s Fragile Democratic Convictions

Joe Goldman, Lee Drutman, and Oscar Pocasangre
/
January 4, 2024
  • Table of Contents

ABOUT DEMOCRACY FUND

Created by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, Democracy Fund is an independent and nonpartisan foundation that confronts deep-rooted challenges in American democracy while defending against new threats. Democracy Fund has invested more than $275 million in support of those working to strengthen our democracy through the pursuit of a vibrant and diverse public square, free and fair elections, effective and accountable government, and a just and inclusive society.

ABOUT THE VOTER SURVEY

The Views of the Electorate Research (VOTER) Survey is a longitudinal survey that Democracy Fund has conducted in partnership with YouGov since December 2016. This report is based on data that include the latest wave of the VOTER Survey, which surveyed 6,000 adults (age 18 and up) online from November 15 to December 6, 2022. The VOTER Survey is distinct among public polls because it draws from a longstanding panel of voters who have been interviewed periodically since it was launched by YouGov in December 2011, including after the 2012, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections, with 2,654 respondents repeatedly participating in all survey waves. Our 2022 survey revisited a series of questions we have asked in previous surveys, while also introducing several new questions in the context of the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Joe Goldman is the president of Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice. He is the co-author of several reports on democracy and authoritarianism, including Follow the Leader: Exploring American Support for Democracy and Authoritarianism, Testing the Limits: Examining American Support for Democracy and Authoritarianism, and Democracy Maybe: Attitudes on Authoritarianism in America.

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the program on political reform at New America. He is the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America and winner of the 2016 American Political Science Association’s Robert A. Dahl Award. He also joins Joe Goldman as co-author of the previous three reports in this series.

Oscar Pocasangre is a Senior Data Analyst for the Political Reform program at New America. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. His research has been published in World Politics, Nature (Vaccines), PLOS One, and Public Administration.

THANK YOU

Special thanks to Larry Diamond and Robert Griffin for their partnership in developing and refining this multi-year research study. Our gratitude also to John Sides, Rachel Kleinfeld, Brendan Nyhan, and Tiwaa Bruks for their feedback and editing on early drafts of this report.

 

Key Findings

  • While the vast majority of Americans claim to support democracy (more than 80 percent say democracy is a fairly or very good political system in surveys from 2017 to 2022), fewer than half consistently and uniformly support democratic norms across multiple surveys over the past seven years.
  • Support for democratic norms softens considerably when they conflict with partisanship. For example, a solid majority of Trump and Biden supporters who reject the idea of a “strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress and elections” nonetheless believe their preferred U.S. president would be justified to take unilateral action without explicit constitutional authority under several different scenarios.
  • Only about 27 percent of Americans consistently and uniformly support democratic norms in a battery of questions across multiple survey waves, including 45% of Democrats, 13% of Republicans, and 18% of Independents. When adding responses to hypothetical scenarios about unilateral action by the president, the share of Americans who consistently supports democratic norms over this time period drops to just 8 percent, including 10% of Democrats, 5% of Republicans, and 11% of Independents.
  • On the other hand, the portion of the public who are consistently authoritarian — Americans who consistently justify political violence or support alternatives to democracy over multiple survey waves — is also relatively small (8 percent). This leaves most Americans somewhere between consistent democratic and authoritarian leanings, a position often heavily shaped by partisanship.
  • When looking at the exact same respondents over time, Republicans have the highest levels of inconsistency. While 92 percent of Republicans supported congressional oversight during the Biden administration in 2022, only 65 percent supported oversight during the Trump administration in 2019 (a 27-point swing). While 85 percent are supportive of media scrutiny during the Biden administration, only 63 percent were supportive during the Trump administration (a 22-point swing). This contrasts with a 6 percentage point difference for Democrats in their views between the Biden and Trump administrations on these questions.
  • Among the 81 percent of Republicans who believed in September 2020 that it is important for the loser to acknowledge the winner of the election, 62 percent rejected Biden as the legitimate president after the election, 53 percent said it was appropriate for Trump to never concede the election, 87 percent thought it is appropriate for Trump to challenge the results of the election with lawsuits, and 43 percent approved of Republican legislators reassigning votes to Trump. Republicans who exhibit higher levels of affective polarization were the most resistant to accepting an electoral loss.
  • In contrast to an overwhelming and consistent rejection of political violence across four survey waves, the violent events of January 6, 2021, were viewed favorably by Republicans. Almost half of Republicans (46%) described these events as acts of patriotism and 72 percent disapproved of the House Select Committee that was formed to investigate them.

 

1. Introduction

Will Americans stand up for democracy even when it works against their party?

Seven years ago, two of the three authors of this report began a research study to understand American support for democracy and the potential appeal of authoritarian alternatives. Since then, we have surveyed thousands of Americans using multiple survey instruments. Over the course of this project, we have gone beyond an initial battery of questions and pursued multiple avenues to understand and explain what people really believe and why. To do so, we:

  • re-interviewed the same individuals over time to check for consistency in responses to original questions,
  • examined depth of support by asking respondents how strongly they felt about their answers and by testing alternative language to ensure that question wording is not being misunderstood,
  • used focus groups and interviews to develop scenarios that are responsive to the reasons people give for supporting democratic alternatives, and
  • compared views about abstract principles with reactions to real-world circumstances.

Our most recent survey in November 2022 offers us the chance to explore the most important uncertainty emerging from our earlier research. Namely, to what extent were responses to our previous questions an artifact of the Trump presidency? Are Republicans really more supportive of authoritarian actions than Democrats? Or, are Democrats just as willing to support abuses of power in a polarized environment when they control the executive branch?

Following the 2020 election, we can understand how views shifted when control of the White House changed hands — even if we haven’t yet emerged from an era in which Donald Trump is at the center of our politics. The results show that support for foundational principles of liberal democracy are discouragingly soft and inconsistent.

Wavering Support for Liberal Democracy

The consistent theme across our analysis is that while American support for the abstract principles of democracy is very high, it is considerably shallower under specific scenarios and conditions. In our 2017 VOTER Survey, we found that nearly 90 percent of Americans believed having a democracy is a good thing. However, support for the idea of democracy was higher than support for its keystone components, such as checks and balances, comfort with pluralism, acceptance of unpopular election results, and condemnation of real-world instances of political violence. Many Americans disregard these principles when their side’s agenda is slowed by political opposition, their leaders say that they know best, or their preferred candidate claims a rigged election.

“There is a significant segment of the population that may be willing to embrace or accept the cause of authoritarian figures if and when it is in their partisan and political interests.”

Our 2017 VOTER Survey included the alarming result that only 54 percent of Americans consistently provided the pro-democracy answer across a battery of these questions:

  • Here are various types of political systems. For each one, would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad, or very bad way of governing this country?
    • Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections
    • Having the army rule
    • Having a democratic political system
  • How important is it for you to live in a country that is governed democratically on a scale from one (not at all important) to ten (absolutely important)?
  • Please read the following statements and tell us which is closest to your view, even if none of them are exactly right.
    • Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government.
    • In some circumstances, a non-democratic government can be preferable.
    • For someone like me, it doesn’t matter what kind of government we have.

Now, looking across multiple years of data — during a period that spans a Republican and a Democratic presidential administration — we find that support for democracy is more fragile than we thought and that it is particularly susceptible to partisan interests. We look at how consistent Americans are in their responses to the previous questions about strong leaders, army rule, democratic political systems, and preference for democracy. We also analyze responses to an expanded battery of questions that tests support for checks and balances, a military takeover to reduce corruption, and political violence.1 We further consider whether Americans consistently accepted the results of the 2020 presidential election, starting with the November 2020 wave of the survey.

When we look across the surveys from 2017 to 2022, the share of Americans who consistently provide the pro-democracy response to this expanded battery of questions drops to 27 percent. This means that the majority of the same respondents expressed support for democracy and its main components at some point but also expressed at least one anti-democratic view across multiple survey waves and 30 questions.

We also asked Americans how much they approved of a president acting unilaterally in specific scenarios. To test for the effects of partisanship, we varied whether respondents were told that a Democratic/Republican president is engaging in unilateral action or that President Trump (in the 2019 wave of the survey) or President Biden (in the 2022 wave of the survey) is doing so. When we include responses to these questions in our analysis of how consistent people are in their democratic views, only 8 percent of Americans consistently provide the pro-democratic response across all questions and all survey waves.

At the other end of the spectrum, we find relatively few staunch authoritarians in our surveys across the years. We define consistent authoritarians as anyone who consistently supports any of the alternatives to democracy — having strong leaders, army rule, or favoring a military coup to deal with corruption — or who consistently justifies violence to achieve political goals. About 8 percent of Americans overall met these criteria. We also find that consistent support for political violence and other types of uncivil political behavior, like harassing and intimidating people from the other party, is quite limited among Americans, with the majority of the population consistently rejecting this type of behavior. Though it is encouraging that consistent authoritarian views are not widespread — or at least openly embraced — among the American public, people expressing these views still represent a non-trivial share of the population, particularly in a country with a population of over 258 million adults. Moreover, given the share of Americans who equivocate in their commitment to democracy, we worry that there is a significant segment of the population that may be willing to embrace or accept the cause of authoritarian figures if and when it is in their partisan and political interests. Much like the political elites who are semi-loyal to democracy — as put by political scientist Juan Linz — and tolerate anti-democratic behavior by politicians from their own party, so can ordinary citizens who waver in their support of democracy empower the views of an authoritarian minority.i The real risk to American democracy, then, is the significant share of people who support or accept anti-democratic behavior and political violence when their side does it and who are willing to give up on democracy to advance their partisan interests. In this report, we interrogate this double standard with respect to democracy by exploring how the consistency of views about abstract democratic principles, alternatives to democracy, checks and balances, unilateral executive action, electoral norms, and political violence has changed between 2017 and 2022.

Growing Evidence of a Partisan Double Standard

Since we first began tracking public support for democracy, a growing body of scholarly literature has emerged to explain why citizens support anti-democratic leaders and actions, even as they express abstract support for democracy.
Whether we describe it as a “partisan double standard”ii or “democratic hypocrisy,”iii this is now a well-documented pattern across various contexts. It is most pronounced in countries with the highest levels of mass affective polarization and among the most affectively polarized individuals within a single country.ii,iv-xii When party leaders take anti-democratic actions — like changing electoral rules to their advantage, weakening the power of checks and balances, or subverting elections outright — their supporters are willing to follow along. While they do not openly condone anti-democratic behavior, they believe their side is justified in doing what they believe is necessary and right.

KEY FINDINGS FROM PAST REPORTS

As part of our larger inquiry into the nature of public support for democracy, Democracy Fund published several reports over the past six years as part of our Voter Study Group initiative (www.voterstudygroup.org). Our past findings include the following:

Follow the Leader: Exploring American Support for Democracy and Authoritarianism by Lee Drutman, Larry Diamond, Joe Goldman (March 2018)

  • The overwhelming majority of Americans support democracy and most of those who express negative views about it are opposed to authoritarian alternatives.
  • The highest levels of support for authoritarian leadership come from those who are disaffected, disengaged from politics, deeply distrustful of experts, culturally conservative, and have negative views toward racial minorities.

Testing the Limits: Examining Public Support for Checks on Presidential Power by Lee Drutman, Larry Diamond, Joe Goldman (June 2018)

  • Large majorities of Americans believe that the president should be subject to oversight and constraints on executive power.
  • Those who have a favorable view of President Trump are much more likely to express a preference for less accountability and oversight. Among Trump supporters, lower levels of education and news interest are associated with lower support for checks on executive authority.

Democracy Maybe: Attitudes on Authoritarianism in America by Lee Drutman, Joe Goldman, Larry Diamond (June 2020)

  • American support for a “strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections” (24 percent) is below the levels found in the 1999, 2006, and 2011 World Values Surveys (29 percent, 32 percent, and 34 percent respectively) and matches the level last found in 1995. Support for “army rule” on the other hand matches the World Values Survey’s high point, found in 2011 (17 percent).
  • Significant proportions of the public appear ready to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election under certain scenarios. About 57 percent of Democrats say it would be appropriate for a Democrat to call for a do-over election because of interference by a foreign government. Close to 29 percent of Republicans say it would be appropriate for President Trump to refuse to leave office based on claims of illegal voting in the 2020 election.

Other reports in this series from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group include Jumping to Collusions: Americans React to Russia and the Mueller Investigation (2018), Behind the Curtain: Americans Prepare for the Mueller Report (2019), and Theft Perception: Examining the Views of Americans Who Believe the 2020 Election Was Stolen (2021).

Many go to extraordinary lengths to rationalize what their side does as appropriately democratic. As Suthan Krishnarajan concludes, “When violations of democracy are indisputably clear, many citizens find ways to not perceive undemocratic behavior as undemocratic if they agree with it politically. This might provide one explanation for why democratically elected leaders in today’s democracies are so often able to get away with violations of democracy without facing electoral backlash.”xiii

In many cases, partisans can justify their side’s behavior because they believe their political opponents are the true threats to the republic. This “subversion dilemma” can “result in a death spiral for democracy.”xiv However, partisans are most likely to believe these accusations under certain conditions. “Aspiring autocrats may instigate democratic backsliding by accusing their opponents of subverting democracy…” explains Alia Braley and colleagues. “Would-be authoritarians’ ability to weaponize the subversion dilemma may depend on a larger set of mutually reinforcing polarizations. These include increasing partisan identity strength, polarized views on policy, dislike of opposing partisans, dehumanization of opposing partisans, stereotypes of opposing partisans, and ethnic antagonism.”xiv

Our study is consistent with these findings and it adds to the growing discussion in two main ways. First, our study is unique in its use of panel data: we can observe the same individuals under two presidents from different parties (previous studies have manipulated the circumstances in experimental surveys). Second, we ask a battery of questions that allow us to go from the most abstract to the most specific, giving us a fuller picture of public attitudes toward democracy.

“The real risk to American democracy, then, is the significant share of people who support or accept anti-democratic behavior and political violence when their side does it and who are willing to give up on democracy to advance their partisan interests.”

2. Strong Support for Democracy in the Abstract, Softer Support in the Specifics

Support for democracy in general — whether by agreeing that having a democracy is good or that democracy is preferable to other systems of government — has remained high over time, dropping slightly in November 2022. Using the entire sample in each survey wave, we find that more than eight in 10 Americans (87 percent) thought having a democracy was either good or very good from 2017 through 2019. This figure was 82 percent in November 2022. Similarly, we see that most Americans agreed that democracy is preferable to other systems, but this share declined between 2017 and 2022 (from 79 percent to 70 percent).

Line graph spanning 2017-2022 shows consistently high percentages of Americans who agree having a democracy is good and prefer it over other systems of government, with declines in both measures of less than 10 percentage points during this period.

Overwhelming majorities oppose alternatives to democracy. More than eight in 10 Americans reject army rule every year that the question is asked, and about three-quarters reject having a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress and elections.

To ensure that people understood what army rule could entail, we elaborated on the question and asked if they favor or oppose the following scenario: “In some countries, military leaders have suspended elections, closed down the legislature, and temporarily taken charge of the government in order to address extreme corruption. What would be your view if the military took these steps in the United States?” The majority of Americans reject such a military takeover in both 2019 and 2022 (69 percent and 61 percent). This share is lower than the share of Americans who reject army rule or a strong leader, but this reflects the inclusion of a “Don’t Know” option in the question about a military takeover. Indeed, the share of people who are uncertain about their views toward a military takeover increased from 19 percent to 23 percent. Actual support for a military takeover is lower in 2019 and 2022 (13 percent and 15 percent) while the share of Americans who think army rule would be fairly or very good remained stable from 2019 to 2022 (18 percent in both years).

Line graph spanning 2017-2022 shows Americans’ consistent rejection of aspects of authoritarianism, specifically army rule, military takeovers, and having a strong leader. Rejecting military takeover has the least support among these, with only 61% rejecting it in 2022.

Support for democracy in the abstract may be high because there is a strong social desirability bias to say democracy is a good system. Moreover, people may have different definitions of democracy in their mind when answering questions about whether democracy is good or preferable to other systems. We further probed support for democracy by asking about support for concrete examples of checks and balances, which are a key dimension of liberal democracy. For each example, our questions asked respondents to express which of the two statements is closest to their views, even if neither statement is exactly right:

  • Rule of law
    • Since the president was elected to lead the country, he should not be bound by laws or court decisions that he thinks are wrong, or
    • The president must always obey the laws and the courts, even if he thinks they are wrong
  • Media scrutiny
    • The news media should scrutinize the president and other politicians to ensure they are accountable to the American people, or
    • The news media should allow the president and politicians to make decisions without being constantly monitored.
  • Congressional oversight
    • Members of Congress should provide oversight of the president and executive branch, even if the President is in the same party, or
    • Members of Congress should give the president freedom to make the decisions he feels are right for the country.

The trends over time from 2017 to 2022, illustrated in Figure 3, show that majorities of Americans supported the pro-democracy statements related to checks and balances. These trends also reveal that for partisans — and particularly for Republicans — support for checks and balances varies depending on which party is in the White House.

Throughout the years when Trump was in office, Republicans were the least supportive of congressional oversight and media scrutiny of politicians. By 2022, when Biden was in office, support for congressional oversight increased significantly from 2019 (from 62 percent to 87 percent). Support for media scrutiny also experienced a large shift from the Trump administration in 2019 to the Biden administration in 2022 (60 percent to 80 percent). Among Democrats, support for congressional oversight dropped from 2019 to 2022 (91 percent to 83 percent) as did support for media scrutiny (91 percent to 85 percent), but these changes among Democrats are considerably smaller compared to Republicans.

“These trends also reveal that for partisans — and particularly for Republicans — support for checks and balances varies depending on which party is in the White House.”

Across party lines, majorities of Americans agree that the president should obey the laws even if he thinks they are wrong. From 2017 through 2022, support for this democratic norm remained high and stable, though there were still traces of a partisan double standard. Republican support for the president obeying laws and courts increased from the Trump to the Biden administration (81 percent in 2019 to 91 percent in 2022), whereas among Democrats it decreased by half as much (94 percent in 2019 to 89 percent in 2022).

Independents were generally stable in their support for these forms of checks and balances. Their level of support for media scrutiny remained almost unchanged from 2019 to 2022 (73 percent to 74 percent). Meanwhile, support for congressional oversight among independents remained flat at 73 percent from 2019 to 2022, but the share of independents who expressed support for having the president obey the law dropped slightly between these two years (84 percent to 81 percent).

Three line graphs spanning 2017-2022 compare Democrats, Republicans, and independents’ support for three democratic norms related to checks and balances. Support for the president obeying courts and laws is high, at 80% or above, and fairly consistent across parties and over time. For congressional and media scrutiny of the president, support rises by tens of percentage points among Republicans during this period and changes more subtly among Democrats and independents.

3. Wavering Support Over Time and a Partisan Double Standard

In the previous section, we explored topline trends over time in support for democracy, rejection of authoritarianism, and support of checks and balances. But these averages across the years may hide important changes in the opinion of the same individuals, particularly if they exhibit a partisan double standard, changing their views toward democracy depending on whether their party is in or out of power. In the exploration that follows, we focus only on those respondents who participated in all the survey waves to see whether their view towards democracy remain consistent over time or not.

When looking at these respondents, we find evidence that many people do waver in their support of democracy, only championing it when their party is out of the presidency. We also identify a segment of the population — a minority, to be sure, but too large to be dismissed as a tiny fringe — that consistently embraces anti-democratic attitudes.

As in the previous section, we focus on seven questions that capture different dimensions of democracy. These questions were asked in the 2017, 2019, and 2022 waves of the survey and fit into the three broad categories of support for democratic systems, support for alternatives to democracy, and support for checks and balances.

From 2017 through 2022, a majority of Americans were consistently supportive of various aspects of democracy, although there is a wide range of difference in support depending on the question examined. At one end, about eight in 10 Americans (83 percent) consistently supported having the president obey courts and laws — these are those who, even with a change from a Republican to a Democratic administration, maintained their belief that the president should be beholden to the law. At the lower end, only about 63 percent of Americans were consistent in their support of having the media scrutinize the president and politicians.

Encouragingly, Americans consistently providing authoritarian responses to these questions were a tiny fraction of the population. For example, very few Americans consistently said a strong leader who doesn’t have to deal with Congress and elections is a good thing (8 percent) or that they preferred a non-democratic system of government (6 percent).

Stacked horizontal bar chart shares percentages of Americans who were consistently supportive of, wavered on, or were consistently against seven key democratic norms in 2017, 2019, and 2022. Wavering by norm ranges from 19% (president should obey courts and law) to 36% (media oversight).

While genuine authoritarian views are relatively rare, what’s more common — and potentially more perilous in an extremely polarized two-party system — is fluctuating support for key aspects of liberal democracy. Depending on the question, between 16 percent and 32 percent of Americans changed their views toward one of these democratic norms across the three survey waves. Americans wavered the most on their responses to the question of whether the media should scrutinize the president and politicians (32 percent wavered) and whether Congress should provide oversight (28 percent wavered). As we show later, most of this fluctuation is consistent with a partisan double standard — supporting democratic accountability only when the opposing party is in office.

Among Republicans, only about half (49 percent) believed consistently across administrations that the media should scrutinize the president and other politicians to ensure they are accountable to the American people. Significant portions of Republicans changed their minds about whether members of Congress should conduct oversight of the president and executive branch when the president is in their preferred party (41 percent) and about having a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections (23 percent).

Democrats were more consistent in their support of democratic norms during this period but were not immune from wavering views on democracy. About a quarter of Democrats changed their views about whether having a strong leader would be good (24 percent) and about their preferences toward democracy over other systems (27 percent). Relatively few Democrats changed their views about whether democracy is a good political system (6 percent) or wavered in their support of having the president obey laws and courts (14 percent).

“While genuine authoritarian views are relatively rare, what’s more common — and potentially more perilous in an extremely polarized two-party system — is fluctuating support for key aspects of liberal democracy.”

Two horizontal stacked bar charts compare the percentages of Democrats and Republicans who were consistently supportive of, wavered on, or were consistently against seven key democratic norms in 2017, 2019, and 2022. Republicans had the highest wavering rates, “media oversight” (43%), “congressional oversight” (41%), and “having a strong leader is bad” (23%).

Independents also wavered considerably in their support for democratic norms. Only for the norm of the president obeying laws and courts and rejecting army rule did fewer than a quarter of independents waver in their responses. But over a third of independents wavered on other democratic norms: 38 percent changed their minds regarding media scrutiny, 27 percent changed their views about preferring democracy to other systems, and 25 percent wavered in their views of having a strong leader who doesn’t have to deal with Congress or elections. These changes differ considerably from the stable trends we document in Section 2, underscoring the importance of looking beyond averages over time and focusing on how the same respondents change their views from survey to survey.

Wavering support for democracy among independents is likely due to reasons other than partisan interests, like anti-establishment sentiment, disaffection with the status quo, a contrarian stance, or views that are not well-defined. Other work has suggested that independents are more likely to punish anti-democratic behavior at the ballot box as they are less attached to parties.((In survey experiments, people are more likely to support democratic norm erosion when informed that their party wins control of most government branches, an effect that is more pronounced among those who perceive greater threat from the opposition party and who exhibit high levels of expressive partisanship.iii Other work using candidate choice experiments finds that most Americans care mostly about their party winning or obtaining their preferred policies than about democratic principles, with only about 13 percent of respondents in the study willing to vote against a candidate of their party who violates a democratic principle if it means voting against their own party.ii Comparisons of different surveys fielded in 2012, during the Obama administration, and in 2019, during the Trump administration, show that Democrats who exhibit high degrees of affective polarization were more likely to oppose constitutional protections under Obama while Republicans with high degrees of affective polarization were more likely to oppose these protections under Trump.vi Similar patterns are observed throughout several Latin American countries where survey respondents who voted for the incumbent president are more likely to support power grabs than those who voted for a candidate that lost.xv))

However, inconsistent views toward democracy among a significant share of independents indicates that this group may be vulnerable to certain types of anti-democratic sentiment. This is discouraging news for those who view independent voters as bulwarks of democracy.

Horizontal stacked bar chart shows percentage of independents who were consistently supportive of, wavered on, or were consistently against seven key democratic norms in 2017, 2019, and 2022. Consistent support is highest for “presidents should obey courts and laws” (88%) — and lowest for media oversight” (56%).

Independents change their minds, but these changes don’t follow a detectable pattern or logic. Partisans, on the other hand, change their views much more predictably. They are willing to accept democratic norm violations only from their side. One explanation for their changing views toward democracy is simple partisan loyalty, a phenomenon that has been observed by several studies of the American public and abroad.((In survey experiments, people are more likely to support democratic norm erosion when informed that their party wins control of most government branches, an effect that is more pronounced among those who perceive greater threat from the opposition party and who exhibit high levels of expressive partisanship.iii Other work using candidate choice experiments finds that most Americans care mostly about their party winning or obtaining their preferred policies than about democratic principles, with only about 13 percent of respondents in the study willing to vote against a candidate of their party who violates a democratic principle if it means voting against their own party.ii Comparisons of different surveys fielded in 2012, during the Obama administration, and in 2019, during the Trump administration, show that Democrats who exhibit high degrees of affective polarization were more likely to oppose constitutional protections under Obama while Republicans with high degrees of affective polarization were more likely to oppose these protections under Trump.vi Similar patterns are observed throughout several Latin American countries where survey respondents who voted for the incumbent president are more likely to support power grabs than those who voted for a candidate that lost.xv)) We contribute to this body of work by analyzing panel data from a period when American democracy has been threatened and when questions about the health of American democracy have been salient in national conversations. With our panel data, we can observe the views of the same individual at different points in time and see if they change from one administration to the other in a way consistent with democratic hypocrisy.

Table 1 shows how the same respondents change their views on checks and balances on the executive from 2019 to 2022. For all these questions, Republicans are the most flexible in their views, wavering in their support and opposition to democratic norms by far greater margins than Democrats and independents. Republican support for congressional oversight of the executive branch shifted most from the Trump to the Biden administration (65 percent to 91 percent). In contrast, support for congressional oversight among Democrats dropped by much less from 2019 to 2022 (from 94 percent to 88 percent). Whether these shifts in opinion are due to changes in the partisan composition of Congress or to the party of the president, they reveal a fragile commitment to a basic democratic norm of checks on the executive that should ideally remain constant regardless of partisan control of these institutions.

Table compares Democrats, Republicans and independents support for the democratic norms that relate to checks and balances, between 2019 and 2022. The greatest difference was a 29 point swing among Republicans in support of Congress providing oversight, which was 65% in 2019 and 91% in 2022.

We see similar patterns regarding views on having the media scrutinize the president and other politicians and having the president obey laws and courts. Support for media scrutiny changed the most among Republicans from 2019 to 2022 (63 percent to 85 percent) compared to the change among Democrats (93 percent to 87 percent). Among Republicans, support for having the president obey laws and courts increased from 2019 to 2022 (85 percent to 96 percent), while among Democrats it decreased by about half as much between these two survey waves (97 percent to 91 percent). Among independent voters, support for all these democratic norms increased from 2019 to 2022, with their views toward congressional oversight being the largest shift (86 percent to 95 percent), followed by their views of having the president obey the laws and courts (91 percent to 99 percent), and finally by their views on media scrutiny (79 percent to 86 percent).

For most of the democratic norms we analyze, these shifts in views from 2019 to 2022 fit with a pattern of democratic hypocrisy. Focusing only on the Democrats and Republicans in the data, we find that for four of the seven norms, the majority of Americans changed their views in a way consistent with a partisan double standard, as shown in Table 2. Specifically, we find a partisan double standard on the four democratic norms that involve some check on executive authority — as opposed to those norms that were more related to general support for democracy or opposition to army rule.

“About 24 percent of Americans changed their views about congressional oversight from 2019 to 2022. Of these, 83 percent are Republicans who opposed the norm in 2019 but supported it in 2022 or Democrats who supported the norm in 2019 but opposed it in 2022.”

For example, about 24 percent of Americans changed their views about congressional oversight from 2019 to 2022. Of these, 83 percent are Republicans who opposed the norm in 2019 but supported it in 2022 or Democrats who supported the norm in 2019 but opposed it in 2022. In other words, only 17 percent of those who changed their point of view did so in a way that did not favor their partisan interests.

Similarly, about 13 percent of Americans changed their views about having the president obey laws and courts. Of these, 84 percent are Republicans who opposed this norm in 2019 but supported it in 2022 or Democrats who supported it in 2019 but opposed it in 2022. The majority of Americans who changed their views about media oversight and having a strong leader also do so in a way that also suggests a partisan double standard.

Table shows percentages of partisans who change their views with regard to democratic norms associated with checks and balances, as well as those who do so in ways that exhibit a partisan double-standard. Of those who changed their views regarding media oversight, congressional oversight and “the president should obey laws and courts,” more than 80% exhibited a partisan double standard.

Notably, when it comes to norms that do not involve some form of checks and balances on executive power, the portion of those who change their points of view are not as heavily driven by a partisan double standard. This is the case for opposing army rule, preferring democracy over other systems, and agreeing that having a democracy is good. For these norms, fewer than half of Americans who changed their views are doing so in a way consistent with a partisan double standard. In these cases, the majority of respondents are changing their answers to the survey for other reasons. These may include inattentiveness, not having a well-formed opinion on the topic, or providing insincere responses for contrarian or provocative reasons.

4. Specific Scenarios of Unilateral Executive Action

In the real world, few aspiring autocrats ask for public support to violate democratic norms. Instead, they offer compelling justifications for emergency authority. Autocratic leaders around the world have exploited public health emergencies, natural disasters, crime waves, and corruption, among other circumstances, to rule by decree or amass greater power, often with the approval of the public.

Reflecting this, we asked how appropriate it would be for the president to act without congressional approval under different real-world scenarios when the Constitution does not give them the explicit power to act. To test for a partisan double standard, we presented participants with one of two different prompts. One prompt read:

“Please read the following scenarios. How appropriate would it be for a Democratic or Republican president to take action on their own, even if the Constitution does not give them the explicit power to act without congressional approval.”

The other prompt asked directly about President Trump in 2019 or about President Biden in 2022:

“Please read the following scenarios. How appropriate would it be for [President Trump/Biden] to take action on their own, even if the Constitution does not give them the explicit power to act without congressional approval.”

The scenarios that they then respond to are:

  • The country is facing an immediate military threat
  • A large majority of the American people believe that the president should act
  • The president knows it is the right thing to do for the American people
  • The president has sought a compromise with Congress but the other party is playing partisan games

Though the scenarios vary, all questions explicitly present a tradeoff between respect for checks on executive authority and ignoring this democratic value. By directly stating that the actions of the president are being done even when the Constitution does not grant them the explicit permission to act without congressional approval, the question should leave little room for ambiguity about the nature of the behavior.

“Autocratic leaders around the world have exploited public health emergencies, natural disasters, crime waves, and corruption, among other circumstances, to rule by decree or amass greater power, often with the approval of the public.”

We recognize that, in reality, there is much debate about the constitutionality and democratic nature of some of these actions — a swift military operation by the president in response to a military threat, for example, is not necessarily unconstitutional. But we worry about unilateral action by the president because, around the world, democracies have been dismantled little by little through executive aggrandizement, often legally, and by presidents amassing more power than what the law explicitly allows.xvi, xvii The extent to which Americans are willing to give the president latitude without congressional oversight — and how their willingness is influenced by partisanship — can pose a grave, if subtle, danger to democracy. Moreover, we are also interested in how approval for the same type of unilateral action can change due to partisanship.

In our 2019 report we found that Republicans were more likely to agree that executive unilateral action is appropriate or very appropriate than Democrats. In response to all the scenarios, the majority of Republicans thought executive unilateral action is appropriate or very appropriate. By 2022, however, partisans reversed their views with President Biden in office (and a different partisan composition of Congress), as illustrated in Figure 7. Only the scenario of an immediate military threat drew majority Republican support for the appropriateness of unilateral action. In 2022, for instance, 30 percent of Republicans approved of unilateral executive action when the Democratic or Republican president provided the justification that they know it is the right thing to do, compared to 51 percent in 2019, and only 12 percent approved of it when they were told it was President Biden, compared to 58 percent when told it was President Trump.

Two arrow plot charts show Republican approval of four types of unilateral action, first by Trump in 2019 and Biden in 2022 and then by an unnamed president in the same years. For nearly every type of unilateral action, Republican approval of that action was two or three times as strong for Trump (2019) as it was for Biden (2022).

Among Democrats, we see the same pattern but in reverse. In 2019, when Trump was president, the majority of Democrats disapproved of unilateral action. However, by 2022, Democrats were more supportive of unilateral action and this change was more pronounced when President Biden was mentioned.

Two arrow plot charts show Democrats’ approval of four types of unilateral action, first by Trump in 2019 and Biden in 2022 and then by an unnamed president in the same years. In all but one case (that of military threat), Democrats support for such actions is below 40% in 2019, but approval increases significantly by 2022.

Views toward unilateral action shifted among exactly the same group of people. Here we focus on respondents who are in the same experimental group in both waves of the survey. In the case of Democrats, when asked about executive action in the face of a military threat, the proportions essentially reverse themselves from 2019 to 2022. In 2019, only 24 percent said it would be appropriate for President Trump to initiate unilateral action; in 2022, 67 percent of them said it would be appropriate if President Biden did it. About 70 percent of Republicans said unilateral action in the face of a military threat would be appropriate under President Trump, but 47 percent said it would be appropriate if President Biden did it — still almost a majority of Republicans. Therefore, this scenario of a military threat against the country, when swift executive action is most needed even in a liberal democracy, can be seen as a baseline against which to compare the magnitude of the changes that occur in the other scenarios.

In the other scenarios, very few Republicans thought unilateral action was appropriate when President Biden was mentioned, even though most of them had said it was appropriate under President Trump back in 2019. For instance, when told President Trump knows it is the right thing to do, about 61 percent of Republicans said unilateral action is appropriate, but in 2022, only 15 percent said it is appropriate for President Biden to engage in unilateral action when he knows it is the right thing to do.

“We find that there is a strong association between affective polarization and the willingness to tolerate democratic norm erosion.”

In contrast, about 16 percent of Democrats polled in 2019 said unilateral action is appropriate when President Trump believes it is the right thing to do. But in 2022, 66 percent said it is appropriate when told President Biden knows it is the right thing to do. We observe similar patterns for the rest of the scenarios, like when majorities of Americans support the president and when the president has sought compromise with Congress. The sample size here is admittedly limited — but the shifts are so large that the result is clear.

Table shows percentages of approval of unilateral action when the president knows it’s the right thing to do among Republicans and Democrats, first by Trump in 2019 then by Biden in 2022. 61% of Republicans approve such action by Trump, and 66% of Democrats approve such action by Biden.

Like other research on polarization and democracy, we find that there is a strong association between affective polarization and the willingness to tolerate democratic norm erosion.iii, vi, xi, xviii Moreover, our analysis suggests that the partisan double standard — in this case approving of unilateral executive action when the president is a co-partisan and disapproving of it when the president is from the other party — is more pronounced among the most affectively polarized citizens.

We illustrate this with the scenario in which President Trump in 2019 or President Biden in 2022 initiate unilateral executive action without congressional approval because they know it is the right thing to do. As shown in Figure 9, in 2019, almost all Democrats rejected such behavior from President Trump. Republicans, in contrast, were more likely to approve of Trump engaging in unilateral action the higher their levels of affective polarization. In 2022, there is a dramatic reversal. Higher levels of affective polarization among Democrats are associated with higher levels of approval of unilateral action by President Biden when he “knows it is the right thing to do” while for Republicans, higher levels of polarization are associated with reductions in their level of approval of unilateral action by Biden. At the lowest levels of affective polarization, Democrats and Republicans have similar levels of approval of unilateral action by Biden.

Two line graphs show that as affective polarization increases, Republicans’ approval of unilateral action when President Trump knows it’s the right thing to do and Democrats’ approval of unilateral action when President Biden knows it’s the right thing to do, both rise significantly. Republicans’ approval of the same action by President Biden also decreases sharply as affective polarization increases, while Democrats’ approval of the same action by President Trump remains relatively low and flat, regardless of affective polarization.

“Higher levels of affective polarization among Democrats are associated with higher levels of approval of unilateral action by President Biden when he ‘knows it is the right thing to do’ while for Republicans, higher levels of polarization are associated with reductions in their level of approval of unilateral action by Biden.”

5. Respect for Election Outcomes

For democracy to remain sustainable, candidates, parties, and their supporters must accept losses. Healthy democracies need high levels of support for agreed-upon electoral norms, like conceding losses, upholding voting results, and peacefully stepping down from office.

There are worrying signs that confidence in the electoral system and popular respect for electoral norms are eroding in the United States. The combination of the country’s winner-take-all system with intensifying polarization have significantly increased the costs of losing an election, leading many citizens and politicians to openly question electoral results. It is in this context that we explore whether professed support for democracy among Americans translates to support for electoral norms or if partisanship compromises democratic views.

A particularly dramatic illustration is the plummeting support for the norm that the loser of a presidential election should publicly acknowledge the winner as the legitimate president. Table 4 shows that in September 2020, most Americans agreed that it is important for the loser of the election to publicly acknowledge the winner as the legitimate president of the country. Republicans and Democrats agreed that this norm is important at roughly the same level (81 percent and 83 percent), while 60 percent of independents shared this view.

Table shows changes among Democrats, Republicans and independents, from September to November 2020, regarding the importance that the loser of the election that year publicly acknowledge the winner as the legitimate president. All levels of agreement go down. Democrats shift least, from 83% to 77%; Republicans shift most, from 81% to 31%.

Following the November 2020 election — and after the race had been called for Joe Biden — the share of Republicans who believed it is important for the loser of the election to publicly recognize the winner as the legitimate president dropped dramatically (from 81 percent to 31 percent). These are the same respondents from the September survey. Independents also declined dramatically in their support for this norm (from 60 percent to 46 percent), while the decline among Democrats was much more modest (83 percent to 77 percent).

“High dislike of the Democratic party and high approval of the Republican party makes it intolerable to have a Democrat as president and can make violations of American electoral norms more palatable.”

Among the 81 percent of Republicans who believed in September 2020 that it is important for the loser to acknowledge the winner of the election, 62 percent rejected Biden as the legitimate president after the election, 53 percent said it was appropriate for Trump to never concede the election, 87 percent thought it is appropriate for Trump to challenge the results of the election with lawsuits, and 43 percent approved of Republican legislators reassigning votes to Trump.

Republicans who exhibit higher levels of affective polarization were the most resistant to accepting an electoral loss. Figure 10 shows that increases in affective polarization — as measured in 2019 — among Republicans are associated with a lower likelihood of accepting Biden as the legitimate president after the race had been called for him. As affective polarization increases, Republicans become more likely to approve of Trump challenging the results of the 2020 elections with lawsuits, more likely to approve of Trump never conceding the race, and more likely to approve of Republican legislators reassigning votes to Trump.

Line graph shows that as affective polarization among Republicans increases, so does their approval of challenging election results and of Trump never conceding.

Line graph shows that as affective polarization among Republicans increases, so does their approval of challenging election results and of Trump never conceding.

6. Justifying Political Violence

In democracies, ballots are the “paper stones” that prevent a society from resorting to violence as a way of resolving conflict and allocating power. But when the cost of losing an election is too high and the prospects of seeing an opposition party win office are difficult to digest, citizens may be tempted to use or condone violence to achieve their preferred outcome. They may become supportive of elites using violence to maintain or obtain power. When this happens, democracy breaks down: it is no longer the only game in town — violence is an option too.

Fears of political violence in the United States have been rising in recent years. Beyond the violent mob that tried to take over the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 and revert the results of an election, there has been an increase in attacks against elected officials and election clerks, most of which have been committed by people on the far right.xix, xx For these reasons, it is worth exploring the extent to which support for political violence is widespread in the American public.

Studying political violence using survey data, however, presents important methodological challenges. First, self-reported survey responses can be misleading, particularly when it comes to contested issues.xxi Second, survey participants often rush through surveys and pick answers haphazardly, which may inflate support for violence when the question asks about how much violence is justified and there is only one option for “not at all” and no option for answering “don’t know.”xxii Moreover, questions about violence in general may be interpreted differently by different Americans, with some interpreting violence as something grave, like murder, and others interpreting it as harassment or insults. This makes responses difficult to compare.xxii Such issues likely mean that the questions we use could overestimate support for incidents of political violence.

Our surveys gauge support for political violence by asking the following questions:

  • How much do you feel it is justified for people you agree with politically to use violence in advancing their political goals these days?
  • When, if ever, is it OK for people you agree with politically to send threatening and intimidating messages to political leaders you don’t agree with?
  • When, if ever, is it OK for an ordinary person you agree with politically to harass an ordinary person you don’t agree with politically on the internet in a way that makes the target feel unsafe?

“Only 2 percent of Democrats and 4 percent of Republicans consistently justified the use of political violence across the four survey waves.”

The American public is overwhelmingly opposed to political violence. Indeed, across survey waves, rejection of different types of violent and uncivil behavior remained high and stable from November 2019 through November 2022. A substantial majority of Americans, whether Democrats, Republicans, or independents, rejected sending threatening messages to leaders of the other party, harassing members of another party online, and using violence to advance political goals.

The most notable change we see is among Republicans. Their rejection of violence has increased from 2019 to 2022. While 72 percent of Republicans agreed that it is never okay to send threatening messages to leaders of the other party in 2019, this share increased to 83 percent by November 2022. Rejection of harassing members of the other party online also increased among Republicans from 76 percent in November 2019 to 84 percent in November 2022.

Three line graphs spanning November 2019, September 2020, November 2020, and the year 2022 compare Democrats, Republicans, and independents’ support for three democratic norms related to political violence. Agreement that violence to advance political goals is never justified is high, at 80% or more, and consistent across parties and over time. Agreement by Republicans that it is never okay to send threatening messages to leaders of the other party, or to harass members of the other party online is somewhat lower and more varied.

Attitudes toward political violence remained relatively stable across the years, with the majority of Americans rejecting violence. Among Democrats, rejection of political violence hovered around 84 percent during this time period. Among independents, rejection of political violence started off at 84 percent in 2019 and dropped slightly to 82 percent by November 2022. Among Republicans, rejection of political violence remained at around 86 percent from 2019 to November 2022.

Given the methodological concerns highlighted before, a better way to gauge for genuine support for violence is to see if survey participants remain consistent in their views over time. When we look at the same respondents over time, we find that only a small share of the population consistently expresses support for violence and uncivil behavior across the years. Indeed, only 2 percent of Democrats and 4 percent of Republicans consistently justified the use of political violence across the four survey waves. The remaining participants switched their answers from one survey wave to the other, which may be due to not having well-defined views on the issue, rushing through the survey, or selecting responses at random.

Similarly, only 2 percent of Democrats and 4 percent of Republicans consistently justified the harassment of members of the other party online and sending intimidating messages to leaders of the other party. On this last question of sending intimidating messages to leaders of the other party, views were noticeably less consistent over time, suggesting that people might not have had a well-defined idea of what intimidating messages might include and were more likely to change their views on this behavior over time.

Table compares consistency of views by Democrats, Republicans, and independents toward three types of political violence or uncivil behavior across four survey waves from 2019 through 2022. The percentage of Republicans consistently justifying the three behaviors is twice the level of Democrats; and Independents consistently rejected these behaviors more often than Republicans and Democrats.

While the share of Republicans who consistently justified violence was considerably low and comparable to that of Democrats, Republicans were more inconsistent in their responses to the questions of violence and uncivil behavior. Close to a third of them changed their views at least once over time. Whether this was due to less well-defined views or speeding through surveys, this higher level of inconsistency among Republicans is notable.

Responses to January 6

According to the States United Democracy Center’s poll on political violence, Americans appear to be more willing to support political violence in specific hypothetical scenarios, such as if the government banned elections or jailed people critical of the government.xxiii The violent events that unfolded on January 6, 2021, are a specific and real case where many Republican voters perceived a danger to the democratic process that at least some believe warranted political violence. These events are a useful case for analyzing whether rejection of violence in the abstract translates to rejection of actual political violence. In addition, analyzing views toward a specific event helps us overcome some of the methodological limitations identified previously. We find that — in contrast to the overwhelming rejection of political violence identified before — the violent events of January 6th were viewed favorably by Republicans, illustrating how support for democratic norms frays in the face of partisanship and when considering concrete situations.

The January 6th events were perceived quite differently by Democrats and Republicans. Most Democrats described what happened as an attempt to overturn the elections, an attempt to overthrow the government, and as an insurrection. Only 35 percent of Republicans saw January 6th as an attempt to overturn the elections, 20 percent of them described it as an attempt to overthrow the government, and 23 percent described it as an insurrection.

Dot plot chart shows percentages of partisans who describe, in each of five ways, the actions of the people who broke into the Capitol. Clusters of dots nearest 100% of a partisan group includes Democrats who describe the situation as an attempt to overturn elections and Republicans who describe it as a protest that went too far.

Instead, 82 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of independents characterized January 6th as a protest that went too far and almost half of Republicans (46 percent) described these events as acts of patriotism. These different perceptions of the January 6th events fit with the idea that partisans are willing to break a norm — in this case the rejection of violence — when they perceive the other side to be engaging in anti-democratic behavior. By and large, Republicans believed their party’s rhetoric that the election was stolen by the Democrats — something very undemocratic — which made it acceptable for them to engage in violence to defend democracy, a patriotic act in their view.

The different understanding of the events color partisan approval of January 6th and subsequent investigations into them. While 89 percent of Democrats disapproved of what happened on January 6th, only 72 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of independents disapproved of it. Meanwhile, 14 percent of Democrats disapproved of the House Select Committee that was formed to investigate the January 6th events while 72 percent of Republicans and 39 percent of independents disapproved of it.

“In contrast to the overwhelming rejection of political violence identified before — the violent events of January 6th were viewed favorably by Republicans, illustrating how support for democratic norms frays in the face of partisanship and when considering concrete situations.”

7. Few Consistent Supporters of Democracy or Authoritarianism

There is no canonical measure to determine the number of Americans who are true authoritarians, democrats, or anything in between. Rather, we have asked various questions about our political system, asked similar questions in different ways, returned to the same respondents over time, and described real-life scenarios to dig deeper into individual beliefs.

In calculating an overall assessment, we test for:

  • consistent belief that democracy is always a good system and better than its alternatives,
  • consistent support for checks on executive authority as well as free and fair elections, and
  • consistent rejection of authoritarian systems of government and the use of violence to achieve political goals.

Perhaps most importantly, support for democracy should come out ahead of support for party. Our definition of a consistent democracy champion is someone who accepts election results and checks on executive authority regardless of the partisan consequences.((While the VOTER Survey has occasionally asked questions that test support for pluralism (touching on, e.g., what characteristics make someone a “true” American), these were unfortunately not asked consistently enough to be included as a measure. However, we have little reason to believe that the addition of these questions would significantly change our findings based on the correlation of these views with the other measures we are tracking.)) Thus, we test whether support for basic democratic norms remains consistent across different presidential administrations and regardless of specific political leaders being named as the actors in a scenario (e.g., President Biden or Trump facing a check on their authority, acting unilaterally, or winning/losing an election).

When we look across responses to questions about preferred political systems, support for checks and balances, views about political violence, and acceptance of the 2020 election results, we find that only 27 percent of Americans were consistent democracy champions. In other words, across each wave of our survey, 27 percent of respondents always provided the pro-democracy answer. Broken down by partisanship, this group includes 45 percent of Democrats, 13 percent of Republicans, and 18 percent of independents.

Table shows percentages of Americans who consistently support democratic norms, as a whole and by party. At 45%, Democrats show a much higher level of support for these norms than Republicans (13%) and independents (18%).

The collective number declines considerably when we include scenarios about unilateral action by the president without constitutional authority or congressional approval. Specifically, we include the scenarios in which action is taken because the other party is “playing partisan games,” the president “knows it is the right thing to do,” and a large majority of the American people believe the president should act.

With these added conditions, 92 percent of Americans failed to meet the highest standard of consistent and unwavering support of democracy. Only 8 percent of Americans consistently provided the pro-democracy response across the battery of questions over time. This includes 10 percent of Democrats, 5 percent of Republicans, and 11 percent of independents.

Table shows percentages of Americans who are consistently pro-democratic in their support of democratic norms and rejection of unilateral executive action, as a whole and by party. At 5%, Republicans are less consistently pro-democracy than the 10% of Democrats or 11% of independents.

At the other end of the democracy-support spectrum, we find a small percentage of Americans who are consistently authoritarian. Here we take a somewhat different approach. Rather than looking across our battery of questions, we focus on two core characteristics of authoritarianism.

  • First, we look at the number of people who consistently believed over time that an authoritarian political system (featuring a strong leader or army rule) is favorable. For these questions we are looking to exclude survey respondents who accidentally or temporarily express support for an authoritarian system.
  • Second, we look at the number of people who were consistent in their belief that violence is an acceptable way to achieve their political objectives. We consider those who consistently supported authoritarian political systems or who consistently justified political violence to be authoritarian.

In Section 2 of this report, we note that 78 percent of Americans have rejected army rule every year of our study and 68 percent consistently rejected having a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections. But how many consistently endorsed an authoritarian system?

Across every survey wave, only 6 percent of Americans consistently supported any of the alternatives to a democratic system, with 5 percent of Americans unwavering in their support of a strong leader who does not have to bother with elections or Congress, and 2 percent supporting army rule. Likewise, 4 percent were in favor of a military takeover to reduce corruption both times this question was asked.

In Section 6, we find that most Americans consistently rejected violence to achieve their goals, but how many consistently endorsed it? Only about 3 percent consistently said that violence is justified to advance political goals. This number does not vary significantly by party affiliation.

Combining these figures to see the extent of consistent support for alternatives to democracy or for violence to achieve political goals, we find that 8 percent of Americans are consistently authoritarian — either repeatedly endorsing an authoritarian system or repeatedly endorsing political violence. Broken down by party, we see that a similar share of Democrats consistently endorsed an alternative to democracy or violence while a lower share of independents did so (4 percent). Support for a system other than democracy or political violence was highest among Republicans at 11 percent.

Table shows percentages of Americans who are consistently authoritarian in their support of alternatives to democracy or political violence, as a whole and by party. 8% of Democrats, 11% of Republicans, and 4% of independents are consistently authoritarian in this way.

To be sure, these numbers are only our best guess, based on survey responses. It is possible that the share of authoritarians is higher. To the extent our results are biased because of differential non-response rates, we would expect higher non-responsive rates from authoritarians, who tend to be less engaged in politics and less inclined to respond to surveys. Though we have done our best to adjust for differential response rates, we must acknowledge this possibility.

Though 8 percent is small as a percentage, it represents approximately 21 million people in a country of more than 258 million adults. We also note that this “small” number is just about the same as the portion of Americans who are unwavering democracy champions, providing consistent pro-democracy responses across all the questions we analyze over all the survey waves.

The vast majority of Americans are neither consistently authoritarian nor consistently pro-democracy. To be sure, most Americans are closer to the consistent champions of democracy, equivocating on a couple of questions over time, as Figure 13 illustrates. Most of them say democracy is a good system; reject strong, unaccountable leaders and army rule; and tend to express support for checks on the executive while rejecting political violence. The catch for many seems to be when support for democracy comes in tension with their partisan interests and when partisanship is made salient to them.

Line chart shows the percentages of Americans by the number of their pro-democracy responses to 36 questions. Only 8% are consistently pro-democracy.

8. Conclusion

Definitions of democracy can range from a minimalist view that emphasizes the peaceful transfer of power through free and fair elections to a thicker view that includes robust checks and balances.xxiv In our study we test this thicker definition, demanding a high standard of support for democracy that includes not just support for the abstract value of democracy and opposition to authoritarian rule, but also support for the separation of powers and the rule of law; rejection of political violence; and acceptance of electoral results, regardless of the partisan consequences and power.

The VOTER Survey, with its multiple waves spanning a Republican and Democratic administration, allows us to identify the consistent supporters of liberal democracy. As described in the introduction, we combine various questions from different years that capture the different dimensions of democracy for analysis. A consistent supporter of democracy, we assert, should express the pro-democratic view in all of these questions and at all times.

We are concerned that consistent support for abstract democratic principles is low, with only 27 percent of Americans consistently holding pro-democratic views on all questions of democratic systems, alternatives to democracy, checks and balances, acceptance of electoral results, and rejection of political violence. We are alarmed that only 8 percent of Americans hold a pro-democratic view on all the questions when we also include specific scenarios of unilateral executive action.

As we have shown, the share of true authoritarians in the country is quite limited. And we find that those who do not consistently and fully support pro-democracy norms are likely not doing so because they do not prefer democracy but rather because they have second thoughts when democracy is in the way of their partisan agenda. Paraphrasing Matthew Graham and Milan Svolik, who find that only between 4 percent to 12 percent of Americans would vote against a candidate of their own party who adopts undemocratic positions, Americans are often partisans first and democrats second.ii

“The simple conclusion is that many Americans believe that executive aggrandizement is okay when their side does it.”

The panel nature of our data makes clear that much support for anti-democratic backsliding and norm violation is motivated by partisanship. Citizens are far more consistent in their partisan orientations than they are in their support for various principles of liberal democracy, and they are even more inconsistent in their reactions to particular scenarios of executive aggrandizement. The simple conclusion is that many Americans believe that executive aggrandizement is okay when their side does it. This is not encouraging.

Perhaps this inconsistency reflects a limited understanding of the meaning of liberal democracy. Perhaps it represents a belief that un-democratic actions are justified (and pro-democratic) because the opposition party is a threat to democracy. Perhaps it represents inflated abstract support for democracy out of social desirability bias. Regardless of the explanations, our findings suggest that the reservoir of public commitment to preserve liberal democracy is distressingly shallow.

It seems that democratic backsliding may depend on the actions of political leaders. But political leaders can be limited by what the public lets them get away with. Unfortunately, our surveys show that they can get away with quite a bit. In contemporary American democracy, the citizenry does not provide much of a guardrail against democratic backsliding. Part of the reason for this is that high levels of polarization motivate Americans to believe that the other side is more extreme and anti-democratic than theirs, leading them to justify and rationalize anti-democratic behavior by their own side.

All of this is particularly worrisome at a time when core democratic norms and institutions are being challenged in unprecedented ways.

We began this study in 2017 out of a concern that American democracy might be far weaker than any of us would like to believe. We feared that our republic would see many challenges over the coming years that would test our political system and that public support would be critical for American democracy to make it through these challenges. Unfortunately, we were right about the challenges that were to come. We also were right to fear that large portions of the public would readily turn a blind eye to these transgressions.

Thankfully, all is not lost. The past seven years have seen countless examples of both leaders and citizens heroically championing our democracy. Election officials, judges, journalists, activists, and voters have defended democratic norms and stood up for our shaky institutions. As we enter yet another presidential election — this time with a former president and leading candidate going to trial for past attempts to subvert our democracy — it will be more important than ever that democracy’s champions are prepared.

References

i. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, “The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Reequilibration. An Introduction,” Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978, p. 160.

ii. Matthew H. Graham and Milan w. Svolik, “Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 114, No. 2, May 2020, pp. 392–409.

iii. Gabor Simonovits, Jennifer McCoy, and Levente Littvay, “Democratic Hypocrisy and Out-Group Threat: Explaining Citizen Support for Democratic Erosion,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 84, No. 3, 2022, pp. 1806–11.

iv. John Carey, Katherine Clayton, Gretchen Helmke, Brendan Nyhan, Mitchell Sanders, and Susan Stokes, “Who will defend democracy? Evaluating tradeoffs in candidate support among partisan donors and voters,” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, July 7, 2020, pp. 1–16.

v. Steven V. Miller and Nicolas T. Davis, “The Effect of White Social Prejudice on Support for American Democracy, Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, 2020, pp. 1–18.

vi. John Kingzette, James N. Druckman, Samara Klar, Yanna Krupnikov, Matthew Levendusky, and John Barry Ryan, “How Affective Polarization Undermines Support for Democratic Norms,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 2, October 21, 2021, pp. 663–77.

vii. Elizabeth Gidengil, Dietlind Stolle, and Oliver Bergeron-Boutin, “The partisan nature of support for democratic backsliding: A comparative perspective,” European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 61, No. 4, 2022, pp. 901–29.

viii. Caterina Chiopris, Monika Nalepa, and Georg Vanberg, “A wolf in sheep’s clothing: Citizen uncertainty and democratic backsliding,” Working paper, 2021.

ix. Zhaotian Luo and Adam Przeworski, “Democracy and Its Vulnerabilities: Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding,” Available at SSRN 3469373, 2021.

x. Michael K. Miller, “A Republic, If You Can Keep It: Breakdown and Erosion in Modern Democracies,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 83, No. 1, 2021, pp. 198–213.

xi. Jennifer McCoy, Tahmina Rahman, and Murat Somer, “Polarization and the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns, Dynamics, and Pernicious Consequences for Democratic Polities,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 62, No. 1, 2018, pp. 16–42.

xii. Yunus Emre Orhan, “The relationship between affective polarization and democratic backsliding: comparative evidence,” Democratization, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2022, pp. 714–35.

xiii. Suthan Krishnarajan, “Rationalizing Democracy: The Perceptual Bias and (Un)Democratic Behavior,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 117, No. 2, May 2023, pp. 474–96.

xiv. Alia Braley, Gabriel S. Lenz, Dhaval Adjodah, Hossien Rahnama, and Alex Pentland, “Why voters who value democracy participate in democratic backsliding,” Nature Human Behaviour, 2023, pp. 1–12.

xv. Michael Albertus and Guy Grossman, “The Americas: When Do Voters Support Power Grabs?,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2021, pp. 116–31.

xvi. Nancy Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2016, pp. 5–19.

xvii. Will Freeman, “Sidestepping the Constitution: Executive Aggrandizement in Latin America and East Central Europe,” Constitutional Studies, Vol. 6, 2020, p. 35.

xviii. Aytuğ Şaşmaz, Alper H. Yagci, and Daniel Ziblatt, “How Voters Respond to Presidential Assaults on Checks and Balances: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Turkey,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 55, No. 11, September 1, 2022, pp. 1947–80.

xix. Rachel Kleinfeld, “How Political Violence Went Mainstream on the Right,” Politico, November 7, 2022, accessed October 25, 2023. Available at: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/07/political-violence-mainstream-right-wing-00065297.

xx. Rachel Kleinfeld, “The Rise of Political Violence in the United States,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2021, pp. 160–76.

xxi. Shanto Iyengar, “Impending Civil Strife or Further Evidence of Non-Attitudes? A Review Article,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 138, No. 2, June 7, 2023, pp. 239–50.

xxii. Sean J. Westwood, Justin Grimmer, Matthew Tyler, and Clayton Nall, “Current research overstates American support for political violence,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 119, No. 12, March 22, 2022, e2116870119.

xxiii. States United Democracy Center, Americans’ Views on Political Violence—Key Findings & Recommendations, June 15, 2023, accessed October 25, 2023. Available at: https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/resources/americans-views-political-violence/

xxiv. Michael Coppedge, John Gerring, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Steven Fish, Allen Hicken, Matthew Kroenig, Staffan I. Lindberg, Kelly McMann, Pamela Paxton, Holli A. Semetko, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, and Jan Teorell, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2011, pp. 247–67.

Appendix

The following survey findings are from the November 2022 VOTER Survey, which interviewed 6,000 Americans from November 15 to December 6, 2022.

1. Here are various types of political systems. For each one, would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad way of governing this country?

Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections. Having the army rule. Having a democratic political system.
Very Good
Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections.

6%

Having the army rule.

4%

Having a democratic political system.

47%

 Fairly Good
Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections.

17%

Having the army rule.

14%

Having a democratic political system.

38%

Fairly Bad
Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections.

21%

Having the army rule.

19%

Having a democratic political system.

10%

Very Bad
Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections.

56%

Having the army rule.

64%

Having a democratic political system.

6%

2. Please read the following statements and tell us which is closest to your view, even if none of them are exactly right.

Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. 73%
In some circumstances, a non-democratic government can be preferable. 15%
For someone like me, it doesn’t matter what kind of government we have. 12%

3. Please read the following statements and tell us which is closest to your view, even if none of them are exactly right.

Since the President was elected to lead the country, he should not be bound by laws or court decisions that he thinks are wrong. 11%
The President must always obey the laws and the courts, even if he thinks they are wrong. 89%

4. Please read the following statements and tell us which is closest to your view, even if none of them are exactly right.

The news media should scrutinize the President and other politicians to ensure they are accountable to the American people. 82%
The news media should allow the President and politicians to make decisions without being constantly monitored. 18%

5. Please read the following statements and tell us which is closest to your view, even if none of them are exactly right.

Members of Congress should provide oversight of the President and executive branch, even if the President is in their same party. 83%
Members of Congress should give the President freedom to make the decisions he feels are right for the country. 17%

For the following scenarios about unilateral executive action, one group of respondents was asked:

Please read the following scenarios. How appropriate would it be for a Democratic or Republican President to take action on their own, even if the Constitution does not give them the power to act without Congressional approval?

Another group of respondents was asked:

Please read the following scenarios. How appropriate would it be for President Biden to take action on his own, even if the Constitution does not give him the power to act without Congressional approval?

6. Scenario: The country is facing an immediate military threat.

President President Biden
Very Appropriate
President

27%

President Biden

25%

Somewhat Appropriate
President

31%

President Biden

27%

Somewhat Inappropriate
President

13%

President Biden

14%

Very Inappropriate
President

11%

President Biden

15%

Don’t Know
President

18%

President Biden

19%

 

7. Scenario: A large majority of the American people believe that the President should act.

President President Biden
Very Appropriate
President

15%

President Biden

14%

Somewhat Appropriate
President

28%

President Biden

25%

Somewhat Inappropriate
President

18%

President Biden

16%

Very Inappropriate
President

20%

President Biden

25%

Don’t Know
President

19%

President Biden

21%

8. Scenario: The President / President Biden knows it is the right thing to do for the American people.

President President Biden
Very Appropriate
President

12%

President Biden

12%

Somewhat Appropriate
President

24%

President Biden

19%

Somewhat Inappropriate
President

20%

President Biden

18%

Very Inappropriate
President

25%

President Biden

31%

Don’t Know
President

19%

President Biden

19%

9. Scenario: The President has sought a compromise with Congress but the other party is playing partisan games.

President President Biden
Very Appropriate
President

11%

President Biden

13%

Somewhat Appropriate
President

23%

President Biden

21%

Somewhat Inappropriate
President

20%

President Biden

16%

Very Inappropriate
President

24%

President Biden

27%

Don’t Know
President

23%

President Biden

22%

10. In some countries, military leaders have suspended elections, closed down the legislature, and temporarily taken charge of the government in order to address extreme corruption. What would
be your view if the military took these steps in the United States?

Strongly Favor 5%
Somewhat Favor 10%
Somewhat Oppose 11%
Strongly Oppose 54%
Don’t Know 19%

11. When, if ever, is it OK for Democrats/Republicans/people to send threatening and intimidating messages to Republican/ Democrats/political leaders you don’t agree with?

Democrats Republicans People
Never
Democrats

85%

Republicans

82%

People

88%

Occasionally
Democrats

8%

Republicans

11%

People

9%

Frequently
Democrats

4%

Republicans

4%

People

3%

Always
Democrats

4%

Republicans

4%

People

1%

12. When, if ever, is it OK for an ordinary Democrat/Republican/people in the public to harass an ordinary Republican/person you don’t agree with politically on the Internet, in a way that makes the target feel unsafe?

Democrats Republicans People
Never
Democrats

87%

Republicans

82%

People

87%

Occasionally
Democrats

7%

Republicans

10%

People

9%

Frequently
Democrats

4%

Republicans

4%

People

2%

Always
Democrats

3%

Republicans

4%

People

2%

 

13. How much do you feel it is justified for Democrats/Republicans/people to use violence in advancing their political goals these days?

Democrats Republicans People
Not At All
Democrats

84%

Republicans

85%

People

81%

A Little
Democrats

6%

Republicans

6%

People

7%

A Moderate Amount
Democrats

6%

Republicans

6%

People

8%

A Lot
Democrats

3%

Republicans

2%

People

2%

A Great Deal
Democrats

2%

Republicans

1%

People

2%

14. How confident are you that votes in your community were counted as voters intended in the elections this November?

Very Confident 50%
Somewhat Confident 32%
Not Too Confident 11%
Not At All Confident 8%

15. How confident are you that votes across the United States were counted as voters intended in the elections this November?

Very Confident 38%
Somewhat Confident 31%
Not Too Confident 19%
Not At All Confident 12%

16. Which comes closer to your own views, even if neither is exactly right?

There has been permanent harm done to the United States as a result of the election process this year. 36%
There has been no permanent harm done to the United States as a result of the election process this year. 64%

17. Would you say that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, or not?

Biden legitimately won the election. 69%
Biden did NOT legitimately win the election. 31%

18. Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the actions taken by the people who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021?

Strongly Approve 4%
Somewhat Approve 7%
Somewhat Disapprove 13%
Strongly Disapprove 66%
Don’t Know 10%

19. Thinking about the people who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, would you describe their actions as…

Insurrection Patriotism Trying to Overthrow the U.S. Government Trying to Overturn the Election and Keep Donald Trump in Power Defending Freedom A Protest that Went Too Far
Yes
Insurrection

60%

Patriotism

25%

Trying to Overthrow the U.S. Government

59%

Trying to Overturn the Election and Keep Donald Trump in Power

68%

Defending Freedom

26%

A Protest that Went Too Far

72%

No
Insurrection

41%

Patriotism

75%

Trying to Overthrow the U.S. Government

41%

Trying to Overturn the Election and Keep Donald Trump in Power

33%

Defending Freedom

74%

A Protest that Went Too Far

28%

20. Do you approve or disapprove of the House Select Committee’s handling of the investigation of events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021?

Strongly Approve 28%
Somewhat Approve 19%
Somewhat Disapprove 11%
Strongly Disapprove 26%
Don’t Know 16%

 

  1. We do not include the question asking about how important it is to live in a country governed democratically as it was not asked in later waves of the survey. []
Featured
Report

How Funding Local News Ecosystems Helps American Communities Thrive

October 31, 2023

Reliable information fuels our lives. We need to know who is on the ballot, what’s happening in our schools, where to find rental assistance, and how to make change in our neighborhoods. From daily reporting that equips people to act, to huge investigations that reveal corruption, the health of local news is bound up with the health of our democracy.

Over five years, Democracy Fund has invested $11 million in six geographic areas across the U.S., where residents and institutions are collaborating to better meet their communities’ real information needs.

This report tells the story of how Democracy Fund grantees created positive impact in their communities through innovative, locally-driven solutions. It also shares lessons for funders and local leaders interested in advancing a more equitable future for local journalism. As more funders consider local collaborative funding, we hope that this report will serve as a valuable resource.

We believe that funding local news ecosystems is an equitable way to support local news because it is rooted in community listening and redistributing resources to areas of greatest need. ​​In 2023, we have committed $4.75 million over the next three years to the geographic areas highlighted in the report, as part of our new Equitable Journalism strategy.

As we move forward in this work, we will continue to share what we learn, including a deeper analysis of the health of various local news ecosystems later in 2024. Sign up for our email newsletter to stay in touch.

 

Featured
Report

Learning from Digital Democracy Portfolio Grantees

August 7, 2023

Democracy Fund’s Digital Democracy Portfolio (DDP) and its grantees have been radically reimagining platform accountability and media policy through strategies at the intersection of reparation and rights.

To support this work, the team’s evaluation and learning partner, ORS Impact, conducted learning conversations with DDP grantees in March and April 2023 to understand the current state of the media and technology policy field and facilitate real-time learning among grantees. The conversations focused on three key areas:

  • Coordination in the field
  • The network of state and local advocates in the field
  • If and how the field is considering and/or engaging in narrative and cultural change strategies

This report summarizes findings across the learning conversations and highlights feedback for Democracy Fund and philanthropy more broadly.

Report

Learning From Five Years of Public Square Program Work

November 29, 2022

To inform Democracy Fund’s Public Square team strategy planning in 2022, we commissioned an evaluation of our program from 2016-2021. Our evaluation and learning partner, Impact Architects, developed an in-depth report that has deeply informed our new strategies

We are sharing here an executive summary that will provide an overview of our learnings across three strategies: 

  • Ecosystem News
  • Equitable Journalism
  • Press Freedom

This summary also shares what we have learned about grantmaking more generally — in particular, the critical importance of trusted relationships and the ongoing need for more general operating support.

Report

Learning From Digital Democracy Initiative Grantees

November 21, 2022

Democracy Fund’s Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) and its grantees have been radically reimagining platform accountability and media policy through strategies at the intersection of advocacy, public will building, and litigation.

To support this work, the team’s evaluation and learning partner, ORS Impact, conducted learning conversations with DDI grantees in July and August 2022 to understand:

  • How advocacy grantees are planning for and adapting their strategies to shifts in Congressional leadership and/or agency nominations e.g., FTC, FCC)
  • What research grantees are learning about effectively integrating research into advocacy/organizing work

This report summarizes findings across the learning conversations and highlights feedback for Democracy Fund and philanthropy more broadly.

Featured
Report

What We Learned from Evaluating the Impact of Our Election Security and Confidence Investments

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July 29, 2022

In the fall of 2021, Democracy Fund commissioned an evaluation of our Election Security and Confidence portfolio – the major focus of the Elections & Voting Program’s Trust in Elections strategy – to summarize our investments, activities, and impact and help us make informed decisions about future investments. Here, we reflect on the history of our election security work and share key findings from the evaluation. For a deeper dive, we invite you to read the full report.   

History of the Election Security & Confidence Portfolio

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election was a turning point for election security following attempts by foreign actors, namely Russian, Chinese, and Iranian groups, to disrupt the election with cyber-attacks. After the election, as information surfaced about how foreign actors scanned – and in a few cases gained entry into – several state and local election networks, it became clear that election security was now a national security concern. In response to these events, the Democracy Fund Elections & Voting Program added a body of work in 2017 to focus on improving security and confidence in our elections. With an emphasis on election security, this portfolio aimed to fortify the election system to prevent further foreign interference and counter cybersecurity threats by investing in tools and training for election officials. As part of these efforts, we also launched the Election Validation Project, which focused on expanding the use of post-election audits, and Democracy Fund Voice supported coalitions that advocated for, and secured, federal funding for elections in three straight years – 2018, 2019, and 2020 – which was the first funding for elections since the passage of HAVA in 2000. 

The Elections & Voting Program’s initial landscaping and research led to the development of four core areas for grantmaking to prevent election interference based on the threats posed by foreign actors and vulnerable security infrastructure. These core grantmaking areas included: 

  • Fortifying the field with workable solutions and best practices 
  • Empowering election officials to advocate for funding to strengthen election cybersecurity 
  • Researching verification practices and resiliency efforts 
  • Public messaging on the legitimate risks to election systems 

Evaluating the Portfolio’s Impact

An evaluation of the portfolio’s impact, conducted by Fernandez Advisors, focused on identifying the impact, growth, and sustainability of our investments to improve both election security and confidence in election outcomes. The report found that our investments in election security resources and tools that increased the capacity of state and local election administrators to identify and manage security threats were among the most valuable. In particular, government agency partners noted the critical role that Democracy Fund played by acting quickly and early to take the financial risks necessary to develop and pilot new election security resources (e.g., trainings, tools, technical assistance, and playbooks), which were eventually adapted by local, state, and federal government agencies once the proof of concept had been established.  

Our early investments in election cybersecurity contributed to the successful execution of the 2020 election. These investments in enhancing election cybersecurity through training and tools and the push for additional federal funding for elections helped create the conditions for what the U.S Department of Homeland Security called, “one of the most secure elections in history.”  

Summary of Findings & Key Takeaways

Despite our work on election security and cybersecurity, public trust in the election system is dangerously low. When we started our work in election security, we believed that investing in election cybersecurity would protect the system from foreign interference, which would lead to increased public trust in elections. The first part of the hypothesis proved accurate—states and the federal government have adopted many of our grantees’ election cybersecurity training and tools, freeing election officials to turn their attention to other issues in the system. However, hyperpartisanship and threats of authoritarianism have further reduced public trust in elections and – in ways that were simultaneously unexpected and should have been anticipated – exposed new elections vulnerabilities including viral mis-and dis-information, the spread of unproven ballot review techniques, and attacks on election officials.   

When we began investing in election security, it was still a young field with few philanthropic players. Democracy Fund played a role in catalyzing new approaches to improving election security, many of which are now embedded in the election system and the work of election officials. The 2016 election was a wake-up call that exposed the security vulnerabilities of our election system, and the system responded by shoring up the infrastructure. We are proud to have played a role in that initial response, and still believe that a resilient system is essential to ensuring free, fair, and equitable elections in this country. 

 

Featured
Report

Reflection on the Impact of Investing in Voter Centric Election Administration

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July 28, 2022

From its inception, Democracy Fund has invested in organizations supporting election administration. We believe that well-functioning election operations are a core component of a healthy election system. At the end of 2021, we commissioned an independent evaluation of the Elections & Voting Program’s Voter Centric Election Administration portfolio to review how our theory of change was executed and how the election system has shifted. Here, we reflect on the findings from that evaluation and invite you to read the full report 

Voter Centric Election Administration Portfolio History

The landscape of election administration in 2014 is a far cry from what we experience today. At that time, the findings of the Bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration were widely praised and pointed the way toward evidence-based solutions to election challenges – such as long lines at the polls and errors on voter lists – that made use of developments in technology. Election administration has always been complicated, especially in the highly-decentralized U.S. system. However from 2014-2016, the field experienced clarity of purpose and a relatively-uncontentious bipartisan consensus on best practices to move the field forward. 

In this context, Democracy Fund developed a theory of change that focused on two needs of the field:

  1. Strong networks of election administrators for knowledge-sharing across and within states
  2. Innovative practices and technology designed for election administrators to use. 

To meet the first need, we identified the leaders of state election administrator associations and hosted convenings with them twice a year in a “train the trainer” model, whereby they would learn best-in-class practices to take back to their state associations of election officials. For the second need, we invested in a wide range of civic technology tools, research, and guides developed by civil society organizations that could be used by administrators to better serve voters. Our goal was to scale and spread practices that would improve the voting experience nationwide.  

Evaluation of the Portfolio’s Impact

An evaluation of the portfolio’s impact, conducted by Fernandez Advisors, focused on the ways that election officials at the state and local level have engaged in Democracy Fund’s network convenings and used tools, training, and resources in which we have invested. The report found that investing in tools and resources for election administrators helped the field adapt to shifts in voter expectations for online services and new voting methods. Our grantees’ programs helped to improve the design of election websites and ballots, helped administrators adapt to early voting and mail voting policies, and helped voters learn where to find a polling place or ballot drop box easily and accurately. These are just a few examples of the ways our grantees supported administrators’ efforts to serve voters.  

This portfolio was especially well-timed to meet the unusual needs of the 2020 election when many states rapidly adjusted their voting policies and practices to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many states offered voters more flexibility to vote early at home or at voter centers in order to avoid crowds at Election Day polling places. These states could not have rapidly adopted new voting methods without following the examples of states that had spent years innovating and experimenting with flexible voting practices. Democracy Fund grantees were instrumental in helping states learn quickly from these examples because they had documented implementation processes and offered technical assistance. 

While network-building, tools, and research have been instrumental in improving election administration, the failure of local and state governments to adequately resource election offices remains a significant problem. Significant and ongoing technology changes (such as online voter registration and ballot tracking) present adoption challenges for many election administrators and their staff due to both the lack of funding for technology investments and maintenance and the difficulty covering the range of expertise needed with the very small staffs that manage elections in all but the largest jurisdictions. For example, election officials interviewed for the evaluation report that they do not have the capacity to counter growing mis- and disinformation targeted toward voters. 

The job of managing elections has grown increasing complex as the field faces new challenges. Local election officials must be experts in many areas: human resources, information technology, direct mail processing, public relations, cybersecurity, and more. Most election officials are managing this load with little staff capacity. In the 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials, over half of respondents said they work in an office with just one or two staff members who may not even be full-time. Participants in Democracy Fund’s state association convenings praised the information and opportunity to share knowledge and resources with peers from other states and bring ideas back to their colleagues. However, limited staff capacity and urgent demands makes it difficult for many officials to spend time adopting new practices.  

Summary of Findings & Key Takeaways

When Democracy Fund began investing in civil society organizations focused on election administration, it was still a young field, with limited philanthropic investments supporting the work. We used a systems and complexity approach to analyze the needs of the field and identify the gaps and leverage points that could improve the health of election administration. We played a role in catalyzing new nonprofit organizations that support election officials and in funding emerging election sciences research. The COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2020 primary elections and made evident the importance of well-resourced and well-functioning election administration. In response, the field of organizations supporting election administration scaled up as more donors began funding this work. Even as the context shifts over time and the field adapts, strong election administration is essential to the health of a just and equitable election system.  

 

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