Intersectional Opportunities: Majority Minority Districts and the Descriptive Representation of Latinas and Latinos

Abstract

Majority minority districts are widely viewed as opportunities for racial minority groups to expand their representation in elected office. Do these districts facilitate the same opportunities for descriptive representation for women and men? I argue that majority minority districts have served as important but distinct opportunities for Latinas and Latinos to get on the ballot. Analyzing pooled data from 57,812 state legislative general elections from the mid-1990s to 2015, and during the first rounds of elections following 2000 and 2010 census-based redistricting, I find support for this view. Key factors often associated with majority minority districts’ capacity as vehicles for minority representation, such as increasingly large Latina/o proportions of district populations and incumbent networks, are more robustly related to the presence of Latinos than Latinas on the ballot. These findings bear directly on our understanding of how majority minority districts fit into a portfolio of institutions for expanding descriptive representation.