Do voters with negative attitudes toward undocumented immigrants moderate their views once a candidate or a party running on an anti-immigrant platform wins? Using American National Election Studies (ANES) panel data spanning the 2016 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections, we assess reverse-backlash hypotheses. We find limited post-election moderation among Republicans who expressed the most negative pre-election views, while Democrats and Independents become modestly more negative after Trump’s election. Over 2016-2024, within-person moderation is evident: individuals with initially more negative views tend to become less negative by 2024. These shifts coincide with salient elite rhetoric and policy change; we interpret them as associations consistent with reverse-backlash dynamics.
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