Has the “big lie”—the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from
Donald Trump—shaped citizens’ views of the legitimacy of other U.S.
elections? We argue that it has. Those who believe Trump’s claim, whom we
call election skeptics, lack confidence in elections for two inter-related
reasons. First, because they think 2020 was inaccurately and unfairly
conducted, they think that other elections will suffer a similar fate, and
hence think these elections are illegitimate even before any votes are
cast. Second, while all voters think elections are less legitimate when
their preferred candidate loses, this effect will be especially large for
election skeptics, because voter fraud gives them a mechanism to explain
their candidates’ loss. Using an original panel dataset spanning the 2020
and 2022 elections, we show strong support for these hypotheses. This has
important implications for our elections, and their legitimacy, moving
forward.