White’s views of minorities influenced belief in voter fraud and Jan. 6 insurrection, study reveals

The afternoon of January 6, 2021, is remembered by most people as one of the biggest assaults on democracy in the United States.  

Two months after the 2020 presidential elections were held, an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 people entered the Capitol building, participating in assault, vandalism and looting, including the offices of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress. 

As Congress was meeting to certify the results of the presidential election, supporters of President Donald Trump stormed inside, all of which was documented and broadcast on national television. 

The idea that Trump's 2020 loss was a direct consequence of voter fraud is the most common reason cited as being responsible for the January 6th insurrection, but a newly-published study challenges this narrative. A new article published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, an official journal of the American Political Science Association, documents with statistical analysis that white Americans beliefs in voter fraud were not based on actual election fears but rather were driven by negative views towards minorities, including Latinos. 

“We took a look at the idea that voter fraud is extremely rare. The biggest thing that we can see on the event’s horizon is that suddenly the leader of a political party espoused, even going back into 2016, that elections were rigged against him. So then you get this type of messaging at the party level that people should be distrustful of elections because they are biased against that specific party,” Dr. Tye Rush, one of the authors of the study and scholar of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, told CALÓ News. “But instead of accepting this typical narrative that voter fraud is a genuine concern, we saw that it is racial antipathy that influenced beliefs of voter fraud and led people to partake or support in the insurrection.” 

The study examines the ways white Americans’ attitudes about election integrity, or lack thereof and views about the January 6th insurrection are inextricably linked with their racial attitudes, which the study refers to as “white racial antipathy.”

Rush explained that "antipathy” is a term that is used to capture the tendency among some white Americans to center their own racial ingroup and distance themselves from the racial outgroups, such as Latinos, in their political evaluations. “It doesn't necessarily mean hatred for other groups. Some people with high racial antipathy towards other groups could probably have some hate, but this is usually just a strong preference for your ingroup,” he said. “ Racial antipathy among white Americans can explain attitudes towards election fraud and the January 6th insurrections.”

The study was driven by data from three surveys of more than 8,000 white respondents; this includes data from the 2020 American National Election Study (ANES), a pre and post-election survey, and the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), which was implemented after the insurrection. 

The data from these surveys further demonstrated that white Americans with higher levels of racial antipathy had more faith in the election process prior to the 2020 election than white Americans with lower levels of racial antipathy, possibly as a result of their belief that Trump would win, as the study indicates. 

As shown in post-election polling data, after the 2020 election and when results were declared, white Americans with higher racial antipathy reported a sharp decline in trust, believing the election had been stolen. Additionally, after the January 6 insurrection, white Americans with higher racial antipathy were more likely to believe in widespread voter fraud and to justify Trump's efforts to challenge the election results.

“This study contributes to a growing body of research that underscores the role of race in shaping political behavior in the U.S.,” said Dr. Barreto, co-author of the study and faculty director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. “Our research is based directly on what white Americans told us. We are relying on their answers to survey questions, and the statistical association between racist views and belief the insurrection was justified is undeniable.”

Apart from showing the hard influence of negative racial attitudes as associated with views of voter fraud and justification for the insurrection, the study also concludes that voter fraud is also closely tied and linked to the widespread adoption of white replacement theory. 

According to Rush, this is the idea that racial minorities are replacing white Americans in political and social power. This belief was a significant motivator for both supporting the insurrection and ongoing political polarization. “Our study highlights an urgent issue in contemporary American politics. If we do not address the racialized perceptions that underlie many of these political behaviors, we risk undermining trust in democratic institutions and perpetuating political violence,” he said. 

The study, which took approximately one year to develop, was also authored by Dr. Chelsea Jones and Michael Herndon and students of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, part of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, which aims to create an accessible and equitable system of voting for all Americans through impact litigation, research and clinical education to expand access to the ballot box.

“It was a lot of work, but it was a pleasure working with them,” Rush said when talking about the study and the other co-authors.  

He also hopes this study brings light to the urgent need to address the racialized perceptions that underlie many of these political behaviors. “We risk undermining trust in democratic institutions and perpetuating political violence,” he said. “It is our sincere hope that the President will do more to convince the public that all Americans deserve equal voting rights and that widespread voter fraud is a myth."