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When faced with co-partisan politicians who disagree publicly, what side do partisan voters take? We draw on social identity theory to develop a theory of partisan leadership cues arguing that leaders have a key role in social groups and because of that centrality, and accounting for affectbased motivation, co-partisan voters resist ingroup dissent. We test this theory with a series of experiments focused on leaders who violate democratic norms and responses from within the party that reflect loyalty or dissent. Our findings show that co-partisan voters are loathe to punish misbehaving leaders, except when their action represents a major threat and the criticism comes from a high ranking party member. Ingroup critics of the leader risk their own reputation in the process. Importantly, these effects go beyond motivated reasoning: leadership effects occur even in fictitious partisan contexts when partisans have no prior affect for a leader or critic. Our findings point to the power of party leaders in groups and raise questions about the prospects for democratic criticism and accountability.

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We thank the Russell Sage Foundation for the opportunity to pursue this issue and for the constructive feedback from the reviewers at all stages of the proposal. We also acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation (Awards 2027278 and 2051194), which funded the COVID-19 Social Change Surveys (2020.

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