Conservative 2024 campaigns reframed demographic shifts as an election integrity issue

During the 2024 United States presidential election, conservative figures successfully repackaged demographic fears into democratic alarms to broaden their mainstream appeal. By framing immigration as a purposeful strategy to manipulate elections, political campaigns normalized extremist narratives under the guise of protecting the voting process. These observations were published in a recent study in the journal PS: Political Science & Politics.

Researchers have tracked a narrative known as the Great Replacement within conservative media ecosystems for years. The phrase gained modern popularity from a 2011 book by French literary theorist Renaud Camus. However, the core anxieties fueling this theory possess a long history in American electoral politics. Historic examples noted by researchers include late nineteenth century panics over a perceived Chinese invasion. Similarly, politicians in the early twentieth century fomented fear regarding a sudden flood of Southern European immigrants.

The modern replacement narrative relies on four central assumptions. It suggests that a nation is experiencing immense population changes, and that these shifts are not occurring by accident. Instead, the theory claims these changes reflect a conscious design established by political elites to benefit themselves. Ultimately, theorists argue this conspiracy will result in the forced displacement of the true people of the nation who should possess it as their birthright.

Michael Feola, an associate professor of government and law at Lafayette College, analyzed how the most recent iteration of this theory manifested in public discourse. He sought to understand how right-wing actors utilized these core themes in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Specifically, Feola examined public statements, campaign advertisements, and social media posts from prominent conservative voices. His investigation sought to explain how politicians capture the civic languages of liberal democracies to serve contrary aims.

Extremist versions of the replacement narrative typically focus entirely on race. This specific variant posits that a historically white majority is shrinking due to both elevated immigration rates and a comparative drop in birth rates among native citizens. Extremists frequently point to demographic models predicting the United States will become a majority-minority country in the coming decades. This explicitly racialized version of the narrative has motivated multiple episodes of mass violence by white supremacists around the globe.

Free daily newsletter

Feola found that the 2024 election cycle relied heavily on a structurally similar but rhetorically distinct version of this narrative. Rather than leaning purely into racial survival, political leaders pushed an electoral variant of the replacement theory. In this version, politicians argued that elites were orchestrating border policies specifically to recruit reliable voters. Migrants from the Global South were characterized not just as outsiders, but as tools used by a political opponent to secure permanent electoral advantage.

The messaging was remarkably consistent across conservative media throughout the campaign. Donald Trump routinely characterized migration as an active invasion. He boldly claimed these border policies were designed to nullify the will of actual citizens and establish a new base of power for generations. The language of a stolen election fit neatly into a broader atmosphere of populist grievance that his campaign had cultivated since the previous voting cycle.

Other prominent voices and Republican leaders echoed this specific claim about voting dynamics. Elon Musk, a highly visible surrogate for the Trump campaign and owner of a major social media platform, posted routinely about a supposed plot to defraud the election. He repeatedly asserted that a failure to elect conservative candidates would result in the legalization of immigrants in key swing states. Musk promoted videos claiming a grand plan to flood the country with undocumented arrivals to enshrine single-party rule.

This rhetoric had tangible impacts on the legislative priorities of government officials. Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, repeatedly accused the Democratic Party of executing a covert plan to turn undocumented immigrants into voters. In response to this perceived threat, lawmakers crafted the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. Promoters claimed the legislation would preserve election integrity by demanding proof of citizenship for voter registration, even though citizenship is already a strict requirement to vote in federal elections.

While some operatives avoided using the specific terminology of demographic replacement, others embraced the language completely. During a nationally televised candidate debate, Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy stated that the Great Replacement was a basic statement of the opposing party’s platform. These committed appeals highlight how openly extremist terminology was utilized to navigate mainstream campaign discussions.

This strategy effectively laundered a xenophobic message for a wider audience. By positioning their arguments around electoral integrity, politicians masked an exclusionary ideology in the respectable language of democracy. Rather than loudly questioning the racial makeup of the country, they framed themselves as defenders of the voting system. This rhetorical shift made the core tenets of the Great Replacement theory acceptable to mainstream consumers.

Despite this repackaging, the underlying logic of the message remains deeply exclusionary. At the heart of democracy is the concept of a self-governing people, often referred to by the Greek term demos. Feola explains that the electoral replacement narrative warps this fundamental concept. Instead of asking whether the people still exercise power, the messaging fixates on who gets to count as a member of the people in the first place.

By defining the true public in opposition to migrants, political messaging establishes a strict boundary. Race and origin become the master lenses through which insiders are verified and outsiders are disqualified. The nonwhite migrant from the Global South is presented as living evidence of a plot to undermine the self-governance of the original population.

This type of cultivated panic over migration tends to serve a dual purpose. What is presented as anxiety over border control quickly turns inward toward domestic spaces. The suspicion generated by these narratives is often directed at minority groups who already possess citizenship. The idea that outsiders are undermining the nation easily stretches to accommodate existing racial prejudices within the country.

Feola notes that these dynamics reflect historical patterns associated with earlier forms of ultranationalism. In such movements, an overarching threat is often characterized as coming from a distant region. As a nation becomes obsessed with defining a pure public, the category of the dangerous alien outsider merges with racialized populations living inside the borders. This underlying logic helps explain why contemporary accusations of voter fraud are overwhelmingly targeted at urban areas with high minority populations.

Right-wing operatives recognized the power of the replacement narrative to mobilize voters through a sense of victimhood. The story generates a feeling of dispossession, suggesting that electoral integrity is being stolen from the rightful owners of the country. When personal sovereignty feels weakened by global forces, politicians can weaponize these anxieties to direct public anger at specific targets. The fear of an altered demographic reality ultimately reflects a broader anxiety over waning cultural authority.

There are recognized limitations to tracking the exact impacts of such high-level political rhetoric. The study exists as a theoretical and observational analysis of political media rather than an experimental measurement of individual voter behavior. The methodology traces narrative themes but cannot perfectly quantify how many voting decisions were swayed exclusively by this rhetoric. Future research in this area will need to evaluate how these partisan messages are internalized by average citizens.

Moving forward, observers must consider alternative frameworks for expressing national identity. Feola suggests that society requires new visions of the democratic public that can gracefully accommodate a changing populace. Developing these alternatives is necessary to prevent demographic shifts from fueling populist anger among historic majorities. Establishing a more inclusive public culture remains a substantial challenge in the face of an entrenched political media ecosystem.

The study, “A Flood of Voters for Them: Replacement Fantasies and Democratic Distortion in the 2024 Election,” was authored by Michael Feola.