The renewal and persistence of group identification in American politics

Abstract

This article builds on analyses addressing social group identification found in The American Voter Revisited (chapter 11), by exploring the dynamics of social group identity and Latino partisanship using data from the 2006 Latino National Survey. We argue that group identification matters to Latinos, and that the ANES significantly underestimates the degree of ethnic identification among Latino registered voters. The evidence we bring to bear on the matter of Latino partisan unity shows important distinctions by national origin, generation, language and level of perceived discrimination—measures that are unreliable due to sampling error or wholly unavailable in the ANES. These distinctions are shown in our replications of descriptive tables in the American Voter Revisited, and further supported through multinomial logit models of Latino partisanship. As a result of a large immigration population, continued and widespread discrimination against Latinos, and new mobilization efforts that encourage ethnic appeals, the Latino electorate embodies the renewal and persistence of group identification in American politics.