Did Trump's Indictments Rally His Base? Evidence from the Counterfactual Format

• DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/csh8g
• Publication Date: 2023-08-16T05:00:24Z
• Authors: Soubhik Barari; Alexander Coppock; Matthew H. Graham; Zoe Padgett
• Keywords: Indictment; Motivated reasoning

In the difficult task of assessing how sudden, significant events causally affect public opinion, political pollsters often ask respondents event affected their attitudes and beliefs. We study case former President Donald Trump's federal indictment for allegedly mishandling classified documents using two methods retrospective causal inference. The commonly-used change format asks to directly state attitudes: Republicans say increased support Trump while Democrats opposite. Like previous work, we argue that exhibits a form bias known as response substitution. alternative counterfactual is plausibly free this source error imagine what beliefs would have been if had not happened. Using method, primary voters report belief mishandled (+2.5 pp) decreased intention vote him in primaries (-1.6 pp). particularly valuable studying effects highly salient news like on opinion.