Levels of Office and Voter Accountability for Democratic Norm Violations

Political candidates in the U.S. increasingly endorse anti-democratic actions across all levels of office, yet most research focuses on federal races. A key concern is that norm-violating candidates at lower levels may ascend to higher office, posing broader risks to democratic stability. This study examines whether voters are more or less likely to defect from co-partisan norm violators at lower levels of office. Across two preregistered survey experiments with 5,000 U.S. respondents, we find that defection rates remain consistent across local, state, and federal races, regardless of the number or type of violations. These findings suggest two interpretations: optimistically, voters are not more forgiving of norm violations in lower-level elections; pessimistically, even where the stakes appear lower, voters are also no more likely to hold norm violators accountable. Our results are consistent with the nationalization of voting behavior and the risk of a candidate pipeline that enables norm violators to rise unchecked.