JUSTICE REFRAMED: THE POWER OF CRIMINAL LEGAL NARRATIVES IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Abstract

I explore how criminal legal identities shaped political framing, narratives, and public perception during the 2024 United States presidential election. Through focusing on Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump, I analyze how Harris’s “prosecutor vs. felon” narrative emerged in campaign speeches, circulated across the media, and influenced voters' opinions. I argue that while Harris and Trump occupy opposite sides of the criminal legal system, with Harris as a prosecutor and Trump as a convicted felon, their roles were strategically framed and interpreted differently depending on media bias and party affiliation. Using a mixed-methods approach, I conduct a qualitative content analysis of ten campaign speeches, a quantitative and narrative analysis of 60 media articles from outlets across the political spectrum, and a quantitative analysis of two nationally representative YouGov surveys. Through these analyses, I find that Harris’s prosecutorial identity elicited mixed media sentiment and varied voter reception, while Trump’s legal convictions were downplayed by right-wing media and viewed by his supporters as politically motivated and illegitimate. Overall, I find that the effectiveness of these narratives is filtered through a partisan media ecosystem and party biases, which challenges the idea that criminal justice identities, credentials, and liabilities hold weight with the electorate, which highlights the limits of narrative framing in political legitimacy. I conclude with recommendations for political campaigns, the media, and advocacy groups for how they should discuss narratives surrounding the criminal legal system in political messaging.