Motivated to Forgive? Partisan Scandals and Party Supporters

• In Event: Voting with All Five Senses

Abstract

Much evidence suggests that voters are motivated to consume information in a way that reinforces their prior beliefs. In this study, we focus on progressive voters confronted with a politician’s behavior that contradicts his supporters' core values. Drawing on a unique survey experiment (n=20,000) that was fielded immediately after a scandal broke during the 2019 Canadian election, we examine attitudes toward Trudeau and the Liberal party to understand how the scandal affected opinions.

We test two types of motivated reasoning. First, were Liberal voters were more willing to forgive politicians for past behavior when their party leader's behaviour was cued? We expect that partisan cues will lead Liberal voters to be more forgiving, while having little, or perhaps a negative, impact on Conservative voters. This dynamic can partly explain why partisan scandals have little impact on party faithfuls. Second, we also consider the dynamics for supporters of other left-leaning parties, who may have intended to coordinate their support behind Trudeau in an effort to prevent his main opponent, a Conservative, from gaining office.

Authors

• Allison Harell, Université du Québec à Montréal

• Peter John Loewen, University of Toronto

• Daniel Rubenson, Ryerson University

• Laura Stephenson, University of Western Ontario