Race, Gender, and Opinion Toward Black and Female Presidential Candidates

Abstract

Using data from the 1974 and 1978 General Social Surveys, public opinion toward blacks and women as presidential candidates was explored. We tested the hypotheses that white males would be least likely to support presidential candidates from both groups, while black females would be the most likely to express this support. We found that although blacks in general were more supportive of black candidacies than were whites, women were not consistently more supportive of female candidates. While black women were more likely than black males to support female candidates, among whites few gender differences were found. Lee Sigelman is Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky. Susan Welch is Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 48:467-475 ? 1984 by the Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 0033-362X/84/0048-467/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.96 on Sat, 03 Sep 2016 05:49:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 468 LEE SIGELMAN AND SUSAN WELCH issues have not been joined (see Peek and Brown, 1980, for a preliminary move in this direction). When we think of the two issues jointly, four possibilities emerge, as indicated in Table 1. Cells I and IV contain the two polar opposite types-those who say they would vote for neither a black nor a woman, and those who say they would be willing to vote for both. Between the polar types fall the intermediate types-those who would be willing to vote for a black but not a woman (Cell III) and those who would vote for a woman but not a black (Cell II). Using this fourfold classification, we should be able to determine whether blacks and women are the targets of one set of individuals who are generally opposed to outgroup candidacies, or whether different types of people comprise the opposition to blacks and women.