Anti-Democratic Condemnation has Limited and Inconsistent Effects on Vote Choice and Democratic Attitudes

Significant alarms have been raised over democratic backsliding in the United Statesdue to efforts undermining electoral integrity, restricting voting rights, and weakeningchecks and balances. In response, media, political campaigns, and activists haveadopted a tactic that emphasizes that “democracy is on the ballot” and highlightsand condemns anti-democratic behaviors, particularly among Republican elites. However,there is concern that democratic admonishing itself may backfire, and entrenchpartisan animosity. This paper examines the effects of admonishing citizens for theanti-democratic behavior of their party using two large survey experiments with 3,500participants (a two-wave panel study and a cross-sectional study). We find that admonishmentephemerally pushes Republican voters towards Kamala Harris in the periodimmediately after treatment, but that it also increases perceived threat and negativeemotions. However, these effects do not withstand a multiple testing correction andall differences decayed after 10 days. Admonishing does not change anti-democraticattitudes such as beliefs about election fraud with null effects observed across partylines. These results suggest that while accountability for anti-democratic actions iscrucial, admonishing is a mixed strategy for promoting democratic values that onlyworks in short time horizons.