Political scandal is as old as politics itself. From sex scandals to bribery, greed and self-importance often go hand in hand with power and money, leading politicians to stray from the straight and narrow. While some political scandals are merely embarrassing, others are truly shocking and can even destroy careers. But the damage goes beyond the embattled politician: when corrupt officials make decisions driven by money or other forms of undue private gain, the public suffers. Things like education, healthcare and infrastructure lose out to the whims of those in power who take advantage of their positions for their own financial benefit.

However, the mechanisms behind the transformation of normal misbehavior into political scandal are complex. In polarized times, aligned parties have incentives to suppress information about their politicians’ misconduct and to vehemently deny the opposing party’s accusations, which ultimately weakens political discourse. Furthermore, if the politician was already in unfavorable standing before the scandal emerged, voters may not even notice the alleged transgressions (e.g., Berlusconi’s bunga bunga lifestyle).

Previous research has shown that when individuals have access to negative information about their favorite politicians, they engage in motivated reasoning that preserves or even reinforces their positive preexisting evaluation of the politician. This is because they interpret the scandalous behavior as a unique and intentional norm transgression that is not a generalizable phenomenon, therefore it does not negatively impact their trust in other politicians generally (Bless, Igou, Schwarz, & Wanke, 2000; Puente-Diaz, 2015; Regner & Le Floch, 2005; von Sikorski & Herbst, 2019). Yet, this research has not fully explored how partisanship and knowledge affect the negative spillover effects of scandals on political trust more broadly.