Partisanship, sexuality, and perceptions of candidates

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cultural debates over gay rights have prompted a great deal of scholarship assessing the nature and resiliency of citizen attitudes toward homosexuality in American political life. We posit, however, that more attention should be devoted to LGBT individuals themselves as potential office holders. Specifically, we argue that in an era of increased affective polarization and partisan sorting, party identification of candidates, as well as affectual and ideological attitudes of voters, must be integrated into analyses of the effects of sexuality as a voting heuristic. Drawing on social identity and subtyping theories, we contend that candidate sexuality will influence attitudes about some candidates, but not others. We then present the results of an original survey experiment in which candidate partisanship and sexuality are both manipulated. The data reveal substantial support of our theory: while sexuality is a relevant consideration in the candidate evaluation process, both partisanship of candidates and political attributes of voters can severely condition its effects.