I have been saying that I'll have a post about public opinion on the 2000 election, and here it is. The Supreme Court decision ending the recount was issued on December 12 at about 10PM. Several Democrats immediately urged Gore to concede, but at about 11:30 his campaign issued a statement saying that they were reviewing the decision and would say more on the following day. The New York Times story which I'm relying on for this information concluded by saying "the Gore camp was on hold tonight, in part, aides said, because Mr. Gore wanted his team to comb through the ruling for any leeway for Mr. Gore to stave off a concession. It was also clear that the Gore team wanted to assess the reaction from its allies and see whether an outcry, particularly by black voters, might trigger enough public concern to sustain Mr. Gore if he tried to seek redress." The next day, the Times had a story saying "Vice President Al Gore plans to deliver his concession in a speech to the American public tonight, according to people close to him." He did, saying "while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." On December 14 and 15, ABC News and the Washington Post conducted a poll focusing on the decision, and Gallup followed with one on Dec 15-17. Of course, these weren't the only surveys that asked, but I'll focus on them because they had a range of questions and were conducted soon after the court decision. Neither of the polls asked people how they voted in the 2000 election, but the ABC/Washington Post asked "who did you personally want to become the next president," and the Gallup survey asked about vote in a hypothetical 2004 race between Bush and Gore, so I'll take these questions and talk about Bush and Gore supporters.
The ABC/Washington Post survey asked "Do you consider Bush to have been legitimately elected as president, or not?" Only 20% of Gore supporters, said that they did. The Gallup survey asked "Now that George W. Bush has been declared the winner and will be inaugurated next January, will you accept him as the legitimate president, or not?" 68% of Gore supporters said that they would. So two apparently similar questions give very different results. I think that is because people can interpret "legitimate" in different ways--did he deserve to win, and should he be accepted as the winner. For example, if a team won a championship as the result of a bad call by a referee, someone might say that they weren't a "legitimate champion," without supporting an effort to strip them of their title and declare the other team the champion. Similarly, someone might believe that Gore probably got more votes in Florida, think that the Supreme Court decision was a mistake, and nevertheless accept that according to the rules we have, Bush won. By mentioning the inauguration, the Gallup question pointed towards the second interpretation. The Gallup survey also asked "which comes closest to your view of the way George W. Bush won the election: he won fair and square; he won, but only on a technicality; he stole the election." Only twelve percent of Gore supporters thought that he won fair and square, 53% thought he won on a technicality, and 34% thought he stole the election. Opinions on those questions were closely related: almost everyone (99.5%) who thought he won fair and square and the great majority (82%) of those who thought he won on a technicality, but less than half of those who thought he stole the election (38%) said they would accept him as the legitimate president.
The ABC/Washington Post survey asked two questions about the Supreme Court justices: "Do you think the majority in the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled in Bush's favor did so (mainly on the law and evidence in the case), or (mainly because it wanted to help Bush become president)?" and a parallel one about the minority that voted for Gore. Very few Bush supporters, but 60% of Gore supporters thought that the majority ruled mainly because they wanted to help Bush. Views of the minority followed a different pattern--among both Bush and Gore supporters, about 60% thought they voted on the basis of the law and evidence and about 30 because they wanted to help Gore. Bush supporters may have been feeling magnanimous because they had won, and Gore's lead in the popular vote may have led some to feel that he at least had a case. The fact that a substantial number of Gore supporters thought that the minority was motivated by political considerations is more puzzling. Maybe it reflects a more general view about the court--that liberals are (or were then) more likely to think that political considerations were necessarily involved.
Finally, the ABC/Washington Post survey asked people if they agreed or disagreed with the statement: "Whatever its faults, the United States still has the best system of government in the world." 89% agreed--94% of Bush supporters and 85% of Gore supporters. That question was asked a number of times between 1992 and 2011, and 2000 had the highest level of agreement (the differences were small, but big enough to take seriously).
Putting these results together, I think you can draw the following conclusions:
1. After a close election, a substantial number of people are ready to believe that it was stolen. This is understandable: lot of people are attracted to conspiracy theories, and few people have any information about voting security or vote counting. Believing that the votes were counted correctly in Florida, or Wayne County, or even in your own town, is mostly a matter of trust.
2. At the same time, most people were willing to accept the results, even if they saw them as tainted in some sense. I think the results of the "best system of government" question are remarkable--even a real patriot might reasonably have thought that a system which had so much trouble counting the votes fell a bit short of being the best in the world.
The difference between 2000 and 2020 is that in 2000 the Democrats quickly conceded rather than trying to promote the idea that the election had been stolen, or that the court decision was illegitimate. I've seen survey results indicating that most Trump supporters think that he really won, but I haven't seen any more general questions about support for the system. I hope that someone asks (or has asked) the "best in the world" question again.
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
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