Something I raised a couple of weeks back which would be on-topic here:
# Most Republicans Say They Doubt the Election. How Many Really Mean It?
Research has shown that the answers that partisans (on the left as well as on the right) give to political questions often reflect not what they know as fact, but what they wish were true. Or what they think they should say.
It’s incredibly hard to separate sincere belief from wishful thinking from what political scientists call partisan cheerleading. But on this topic especially, the distinctions matter a lot. Are Republican voters merely expressing support for the president by standing by his claims of fraud — in effectively the same way Republicans in Congress have — or have they accepted widespread fraud as true? Do these surveys suggest a real erosion in faith in American elections, or something more familiar, and temporary?
“The evidence is strong that a number of people out there, even if they know the truth, will give a cheerleading answer,” said Seth Hill, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. Part of the president’s base appears eager to stick it to the establishment, he said. If those voters interpret surveys about the election’s legitimacy as part of that establishment, he said, “it’s quite possible they will use this as another vehicle to express that sentiment.”