Driving a Wedge? Republicans, Immigration, and the Impact of Substantive Appeals on African American Vote Choice

Abstract

Recently, a number of prominent Republican elites have argued that the economic plight of African Americans is attributable to undocumented immigration to the United States. Have these arguments concerning the link between black economic well-being and undocumented immigration become commonplace in the rhetoric of Republican elites, and if so, does exposure to these appeals impact black vote choice? Employing data from over forty years of congressional speeches, the campaign speeches and public addresses of President Donald Trump, televised campaign advertisements from the Wisconsin/Wesleyan Advertising Projects, and a survey experiment embedded in the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find that Republican elected officials have increasingly made substantive appeals to blacks on the issue of immigration reform, that exposure to this type of substantive appeal leads blacks to more strongly support a fictional Republican candidate, and that this support is moderated by a respondent’s level of linked fate. These findings challenge existing scholarship that Republican elites ignore the concerns of the black community and suggest that Republicans may be using the issue of immigration to drive a wedge in the Democratic electoral coalition by targeting the Democratic Party’s strongest constituency.