Executive Summary

What do Americans expect to happen in the 2024 election and its aftermath? Polling indicates an incredibly tight presidential contest, and previous research suggests trust in election outcomes to be in part influenced by how much results diverge from expectations. This report examines who Americans expect will win the 2024 presidential election and if/when the losing candidate will/should concede. We find expectations of the winner to be strongly influenced by partisan identity and affective polarization. We also find strong partisan differences in expectations of who will concede, but fairly similar trends in when partisans believe their candidate will concede if they lose.

Key findings include:

Most Americans perceive a tight race, but one where their party’s candidate will win. Majorities of both Democrats and Republicans are more confident than not that their party’s candidate will prevail and the other party’s will lose.
Confidence increases with affective polarization. Americans who dislike the opposing party/like their own party the most are about 20% more confident their party’s candidate will win the election than those with equal in- vs. out-party evaluations.
Partisans are split on confidence of concessions. Democrats are very confident Kamala Harris will concede if she loses, but not at all confident Donald Trump will do the same. Republicans have equal levels of confidence that either candidate will concede.
Very few partisans believe their candidate will never concede. Only 6% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans believe their candidate should never concede, and partisans are generally comparable on when they believe candidates should concede.

Main Results

This is the 10th in a series of monthly reports on the state of partisan animosity conducted by the Polarization Research Lab (PRL) at Dartmouth College, University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University. This report looks at 6,000 interviews conducted between August 30 and October 10, 2024 on the YouGov platform.

The focus of this October 2024 report is expectations around the 2024 Presidential election. As Election Day draws closer, pollsters have grown no more certain about the outcome. Indeed, many diagnose the race as a coin-flip, with the margin of victory likely being exceptionally tight. We know less, though, about what voters themselves think of the outcome. More broadly, this report is also concerned about the subsequent resolution of the 2024 election; will (and should) the losing candidate concede? Both questions implicate the peaceful transition of power, which was shown to be worryingly fragile on January 6, 2021.

Partisans are uncertain, but believe in their candidates

We asked respondents what they believe the odds are that each candidate (randomized by respondent) will win the election. 0 meant no chancing of winning, 50 that winning and losing were equally likely, and 100 meant no chance of losing. Among all respondents, there is a strong clustering of responses around 50, indicating most Americans believe this to be a tight race. Independents are particularly uncertain, and equally so between Harris and Trump.

Partisans are more likely to project the future through partisan-colored glasses. The median Democrat believes Harris has a 65% chance of winning and Trump a 46% chance. Republicans are slightly more confident in their own candidate, giving Trump a 70% chance and Harris 40%. On average, both sides appear cautiously optimistic about their chances, raising the possibility that one party will be particularly disappointed by or even skeptical of the results regardless of outcome.

More affectively polarized partisans are more confident in their candidates

There is, however, high variance in the confidence that partisans have in their party’s candidate. Part of that heterogeneity appears related to levels of affective polarization: how much more warmly partisans feel toward their own party than toward opposing partisans. As affective polarization rises, so too does confidence in the victory of a partisan’s respective candidate. Such confidence appears to rise by around 20%, for both Democrats and Republicans. Again, this raises the concerning possibility that those most disdainful of the other party relative to their own will experience an outcome that strongly challenges their perceptions of the world.

Partisans are split on their confidence in candidates’ concession likelihoods

We also asked respondents to record their level of confidence that candidates (randomized) would concede if they were to lose in November. Neither candidate has ever conceded a race: Harris because she has never lost, and Trump because he has never accepted defeat (even refusing to admit he legitimately lost the popular vote in his victorious 2016 election).

Democrats are, on average, very confident that Harris will concede if she loses, but not confident at all that Trump will do the same. Over half of all Democratic responses are in each of these extreme categories, respectively. Republicans have much more equal evaluations of each candidate: around 10-13% are either very confident either candidate will concede or have no confidence at all. The average Republican is somewhat confident that either candidate would concede. Independents are in between Democrats and Republicans: they are more likely to believe Harris will concede than Trump, but not to the same extent that Democrats are.

Americans believe the losing candidate should concede, but don’t agree on when

Finally, we asked respondents when the losing candidate (of their party) should concede were they to lose in November. The results show a remarkable level of similarity across partisans, perhaps surprising given previously noted beliefs about concession probabilities. Only 6% of Democrats, 10% of Republicans, and 9% of Independents believe their candidate should never concede. Similarly, however, few (13% of Democrats and 6% of Republicans) believe that their candidates should concede at the earliest time: when news networks declare a winner. A plurality of respondents believe concession should occur after all ballots have been counted, which can take several weeks. The next largest group across all partisans believes concession should occur only after Congress certifies a winner, which occurs in January (months after the election in November). Given how close the election appears to be, then, we should not expect partisans to admit defeat expeditiously in 2024.

Appendix

About The Polarization Research Lab and our Data

The Polarization Research Lab works to understand and strengthen democracy by conducting rigorous science, producing public goods, and training the next generation of scholars. The Lab is led by PIs Sean J. Westwood at Dartmouth College and Yphtach Lelkes at the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania.
PRL studies the political attitudes of Americans and the behavior of elected officials. Our goals are to:
- Dispel rumors and show hard data on the democratic attitudes of citizens. We conduct the largest continuous tracking poll on YouGov, collecting 1,000 interviews of Americans a week.
- Identify the behavior of elected officials that contributes to toxic polarization.
- Produce publicly available reports and tools to help stakeholders advance responses to toxic polarization that are based in data and evidence. PRL works directly with journalists, democracy practitioners, and policymakers.

PRL Is Supported by

The Charles Koch Foundation
The Hewlett Foundation
The Knight Foundation
The Templeton World Charity Foundation
The Carnegie Corporation
New Pluralists

Survey Questions: 2024 Election Predictions

Thinking about the 2024 race for US President, what do you think the odds are that [randomize: Kamala Harris/Donald Trump] will win in November? Zero means no chance of winning, 50 means a win is just as likely as a loss, and 100 means there is no chance of losing.
- 0-100
If [randomize: Kamala Harris/Donald Trump] loses in November, how confident are you that [randomize: Kamala Harris/Donald Trump] will accept the loss and concede to [her/his] opponent?
- Very confident
- Confident
- Somewhat confident
- Not Very confident
- Not confident at all
If [inparty/randomized for non-leaning independents: Kamala Harris/Donald Trump] loses in November, [she/he] should concede to [Donald Trump/Kamala Harris]:
- After the news networks declare a winner
- After all ballots have been counted
- After all legal appeals have been exhausted
- After the Electoral College votes
- After Congress certifies the winner
- Never