Rachel M. Blum, Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma

Christopher Sebastian Parker, Professor, University of Washington

 

The Panel Study of the MAGA Movement (PSMM) is a survey designed to assess the attitudes and behavior of the people who consider themselves part of the “Make America Great Again” movement, popularized by the Trump campaign in 2016. Understanding them is paramount. For as the base to which former President Trump played (and plays), the MAGA movement ultimately motivated his challenges to American democracy. For example, exhorted by then-President Trump, many in the MAGA movement participated in the Capitol riot, an effort to stifle the peaceful transfer of power, a staple of democracy. As the principal source of perhaps the most divisive period in American history, we thought it wise to conduct a systematic, thorough investigation of the movement. As such, the PSMM permits us to distinguish between movement supporters and activists, among other things. Ultimately, ours is a study that gauges the opinions and behavior of MAGA supporters before and, more importantly, after the events of January 6, 2021. Collected in late December, data from Wave 1 of our survey interrogates respondents on a range of issues, including attitudes toward: BLM, protests in general, Covid-19 attitudes, beliefs about the 2020 election outcomes, political mobilization, racism, sexism, and nativism, among other things. We followed up Wave 1 roughly three weeks later, re-interviewing the same respondents, in the aftermath of the Capitol Riots. In Wave 2, we repeated many of the same items from Wav 1, as a means of assessing post-riot opinion change.  However, we also included an extensive battery of questions on democracy, and attitudes toward the riot, as well as a few experiments, ones that manipulated alternative explanations of the riot. As the results make clear, the MAGA movement is a clear and present danger to American democracy. Details on data collection and sampling methods are provided here.

We assembled this preview of our findings for the benefit of the public. As such, the findings presented here are relatively simple. We reserve more sophisticated analysis for the appropriate academic outlets. With the exception of our findings as they relate to the Capitol Riots, the results presented below belong to the first wave of data collection. For more detailed analysis please refer to the site menu. (By way of caveat, there is no way to know whether or not our survey is representative of the MAGA movement. It may very well be true that some number of MAGA types don’t trust academics, and declined to take the survey.) The demographic composition of the MAGA movement is overwhelmingly white, male, Christian, retired, and over 65 years of age. They’re attracted to the following groups, ones that include gun rights, charities, pro police, anti-lockdown, pro-life, and “stop the steal.” They’re extremely politically active, all in support of the Republican Party. However, only roughly 60 percent are solid Republicans, the rest either “lean” Republican or Independent. The MAGA movement overwhelmingly believes Trump’s election fraud claims, would have supported him for a “third term”(had it been an option), and don’t believe that voting should be made easier. They’re also of the opinion, to a large degree, that Covid-related restrictions should be eased, that Americans are overreacting to the pandemic, and that Trump told the truth about the threat to American public health posed by the pandemic. Further, responses to our survey suggests that MAGA is populated with a good number of racist, sexists, and nativists. Finally, on the Capitol Riots, the vast majority of MAGA supporters blame Antifa for the riots, not Trump (he bears almost no responsibility, according to them); only 3 percent of them think he should be impeached, versus the 97 percent who think he deserves a walk. These findings are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. We have much more to share. For us, the implications are clear: our country is in grave danger since one of the two major parties is essentially captured by the MAGA movement. We invite you to draw your own conclusions from these preliminary findings. (Be advised that we will continue to update the site as we complete more analysis, especially on the second wave where we will document attitudes from before and after the riot.)