Thread by @BrightLineWatch

Two new reports from @BrightLineWatch:
-Our quarterly assessment of the state of U.S. democracy as rated by experts & the public brightlinewatch.org/wave7/
-New experimental study testing whether voters punish candidates who violate democratic principles brightlinewatch.org/us-elections/

Expert ratings of the quality of U.S. democracy in October remain down compared to before Trump took office but were largely stable compared to the prior @BrightLineWatch survey in July brightlinewatch.org/wave7/

However, we observe two notable exceptions to the pattern of expert stability in assessments of U.S. democracy compared to July: declines in ratings of toleration of protest and a lack of political violence, which we attribute to recent high-profile events brightlinewatch.org/wave7/

We also asked experts to assess a list of recent political events. Notably, a number of these events were rated as both important and abnormal brightlinewatch.org/wave7/, echoing findings from our previous survey brightlinewatch.org/wave6/

In a separate study, we asked Americans to choose between randomly constructed pairs of hypothetical candidates with different attributes to see how support for or opposition to democratic principles affected vote choice brightlinewatch.org/us-elections/

Notably, we find that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents *all* punish candidates who violate principles of independent investigations, judicial independence, and cross-party compromise. There is bipartisan consensus on these principles.
brightlinewatch.org/us-elections/

However, partisans diverge sharply on the principle of equal ballot access. Republicans are more likely to support candidates who back voter ID laws while Democrats are less likely to do so brightlinewatch.org/us-elections/