The Politics in White Identity: Testing a Racialized Partisan Hypothesis

Abstract

What politicizes White identity? We consider here a racialized partisan hypothesis. Although Whites numerically prevail within each party, the variance around this central tendency varies sharply between them: Republicans are tightly organized around Whites, yet Democrats are structured around Whites who share membership with people of color. This configuration puts White Democrats in a more precarious position and can sometimes motivate them to jockey for intraparty prominence. We support this claim with survey and experimental evidence. First, we show that White identity is more strongly associated with opposition to immigration among White Democrats than White Republicans (n = 6,126). This pattern is absent on a placebo (opposition to federal spending on science). Second, we demonstrate, experimentally, that White identity (but not partisan identity) mediates the impact of racial threat on racially coded policies among White Democrats (n = 400). This pattern does not emerge among White Republicans (n = 400) and is absent on another placebo (support for infrastructure spending).