White Voters Research Articles

Seeing Spanish: The Effects of Language-Based Media Choices on Resentment and Belonging

ABSTRACT Does seeing Spanish-language news in the media change the racial and political attitudes of Whites and Spanish-speaking Latinos? We examine the effects of Spanish-language media on White and Spanish-speaking Latino attitudes using online survey experiments in English and Spanish, respectively. We expect White Americans to react to Spanish-language media options by developing more hostile attitudes toward Hispanics, and Spanish-speaking Latino audiences to feel a greater sense of belonging in America when they see Spanish represented in the media. We find that seeing articles about non-immigration politics in Spanish, as an option next to English articles, significantly raises racial resentment toward Hispanics among Whites. Among Spanish-speaking Latinos, seeing a political news article option in Spanish increases feelings of inclusion and belonging, even when it is not about a racialized issue like immigration. Such evidence suggests that language alone may prime identity and shape political attitudes for White and Spanish-speaking Latino voters.

Biases at the Ballot Box: How Multiple Forms of Voter Discrimination Impede the Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups

Research shows that ethnic minority candidates often face an electoral penalty at the ballot box. In this study, we argue that this penalty depends on both candidate and voter characteristics, and that pro-minority policy positions incur a greater penalty than a candidate’s ethnic background itself. Using a conjoint experiment embedded in a panel study of British voters, we investigate the relative contributions of candidate ethnicity, policy positions, affirmative action, and voter attitudes to this electoral penalty. We find that although Pakistani (Muslim) candidates are penalized directly for their ethnicity, black Caribbean candidates receive on average the same levels of support as white British ones. However, black Caribbean candidates suffer conditional discrimination where they are penalized if they express support for pro-minority policies, and all candidates are penalized for having been selected through an affirmative action initiative. We also find that some white British voters are more inclined to support a black Caribbean candidate than a white British one, all else being equal. These voters (one quarter of our sample) have cosmopolitan views on immigration, and a strong commitment to anti-prejudice norms. However, despite efforts across parties to increase the ethnic diversity of candidates for office, many voters’ preferences continue to pose barriers toward descriptive and substantive representation of ethnic minority groups.

On the measurement of social class and its role in shaping white vote choice in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

In this paper, I assess how social class influenced white vote choice in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. I use 2016 ANES data to create a measure of class that is based on an individual's income, education, occupation, and wealth. I then use a structural equation model to show that an individual's social class both directly and indirectly shaped vote choice. I demonstrate that low class standing was a significant predictor of support for Trump in the general election. I also show that social class exerted an indirect effect. Lower class standing is associated with higher levels of racial resentment and authoritarianism, which were in turn strong predictors vote choice. I conclude that social class was one of the primary determinants of white vote choice.

Ausentismo, indecisión y campañas digitales en la carrera hacia las alcaldías 2019 en Ecuador

El presente trabajo de investigación se elaboró bajo el enfoque cuantitativo, basado en el tipo de investigación correlacional, descriptiva y no experimental; sobre la base de datos de las elecciones seccionales 2019 de los 221 cantones del Ecuador, se propuso determinar la relación entre los votos válidos, el ausentismo, los votos nulos, votos blancos y el número de candidatos a las alcaldías, así como también, se buscó establecer el nivel de eficiencia de la estrategia de comunicación política mediante la tasa de conversión de seguidores de las plataformas Facebook y Twitter a votos válidos. Entre los principales resultados se destaca por un lado la correlación significativa entre las variables de estudio, por ejemplo, los votos blancos y nulos presentaron una relación positiva y significativa con el ausentismo (0.850 y 0.867, respectivamente), mientras que por otro, las tasas de conversión sugieren un desempeño eficiente de la estrategia de comunicación en las plataformas sociales; sin embargo, es un error generalizar estos resultados como un factor determinante en las elecciones seccionales de 2019, porque los estrategas políticos en Ecuador, recurren generalmente a las tácticas de comunicación política a través de medios de comunicación tradicionales.

Does Context Outweigh Individual Characteristics in Driving Voting Behavior? Evidence from Relocations within the U.S

We measure the overall influence of contextual versus individual factors (e.g., voting rules and media as opposed to race and education) on voter behavior, and explore underlying mechanisms. Using a U.S.-wide voter-level panel, 2008–18, we examine voters who relocate across state and county lines, tracking changes in registration, turnout, and party affiliation to estimate location and individual fixed effects in a value-added model. Location explains 37 percent of the cross-state variation in turnout (to 63 percent for individual characteristics) and an only slightly smaller share of variation in party affiliation. Place effects are larger for young and White voters.

Two Suns of the Southwest: Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, and the 1964 Battle Between Liberalism and Conservatism by Nancy Beck Young

Reviewed by: Two Suns of the Southwest: Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, and the 1964 Battle Between Liberalism and Conservatism by Nancy Beck Young Kevin Jon Fernlund Two Suns of the Southwest: Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, and the 1964 Battle Between Liberalism and Conservatism. By Nancy Beck Young. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2019. Pp. 289. Photographs, notes, bibliographic essay, index.) Nancy Beck Young began the research for this book in 2013. Since then, Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, and Young observes in her [End Page 98] preface that there were “intriguing” similarities between the elections of 1964 and 2016. In both, the Democratic candidates—Lyndon Johnson and Hillary Rodham Clinton—represented safe, status quo choices while Barry Goldwater and Donald Trump were both portrayed by Democrats and Republican centrists (Rockefeller Republicans in 1964 and Never Trump Republicans in 2016) as extremists. In the end, Goldwater was trounced, except in his home state of Arizona and in the five southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. He lost both the Electoral College and the popular vote. Trump also lost the popular vote but prevailed in the Electoral College. For all of the inviting similarities, this book is not about two different elections, but one election and two different campaigns, those of Texas’s Lyndon Johnson and Arizona’s Barry Goldwater. Young argues that the election of 1964 “was more than anything else a competition about two different views of the Sunbelt, Goldwater’s backward-looking conservatism and Johnson’s forward-looking liberalism” (7), and that it turned on the issues of race and the role of the federal government. Young calls these men two suns of the Southwest. Her coverage of the 1964 election is comprehensive and well-researched. She has a sharp eye for detail, such as that available in direct mailing, advertising, speeches, fundraising, and campaign literature, and she also has a good grasp of Johnson’s politics. In addition, she understands how central the civil rights movement had become to liberalism and the Democratic Party, once the bastion of white supremacy and segregation. Her treatment of Goldwater, however, is less sure. While Johnson and Goldwater both may have come from the Southwest, there is a big difference between the history of Johnson’s Texas, which was part of the South, and Goldwater’s Arizona, which was in the West, where the Civil War and Jim Crow cast far lighter shadows. What did loom large for Goldwater was the Cold War, not civil rights (he supported integrated schools but, as a strict constructionist, believed education was a local, not a federal, matter). For “Mr. Conservative,” the spread of Communism abroad and the expansion of the liberal state at home were two inextricably related problems that posed a grave threat to American liberty. In The Conscience of a Conservative (Victor Publishing, 1960), with the clarity and force of a Thomas Paine pamphlet, Goldwater laid out his political vision, which galvanized a new generation of Republicans, and in 1964 won over the Deep South’s voters, who, in retrospect, proved to be way ahead of their time. Young downplays the strong appeal of Goldwater’s political message in the South and offers instead a traditional explanation for his electoral success, suggesting that he used dog whistles and coded speech to lure racist and resentful white voters from the Democratic Party—a charge that he vehemently denied. If Goldwater had a “southern strategy,” it was to [End Page 99] attract voters by taking unequivocal and principled positions on the “Soviet menace,” the size and reach of government, states’ and civil rights, taxes and spending, welfare, farming, labor, and education. And it worked, first in Arizona and the South, and then almost everywhere else, if not right away. It took twenty years, or five more presidential elections, for the sun of the old liberalism to set and for the sun of the new conservatism to rise. In 1984, the latter finally reached its zenith: after running for a second presidential term on what was essentially a Goldwater platform, Ronald Reagan carried forty-nine states out of fifty to win 525 electoral votes out of 538. The United States...

The Compound Effects of Candidate Race and Racial Resentment in US House Elections

AbstractDespite the longstanding underrepresentation of blacks in Congress, political science research has not settled on the cause. While there is increasing evidence that racial attitudes affect vote choice in today's congressional elections, how this effect interacts with the race of the candidates is unknown. This study addresses this debate by analyzing novel survey, census, and candidate data from the Obama era of congressional elections (2010–2016) to test whether racially prejudiced attitudes held by whites decrease their likelihood of supporting black Democratic candidates and Democratic candidates as a whole. In line with theoretical predictions, this paper finds that Democratic House candidates are less likely to receive votes among white voters with strong racial resentment toward blacks, and black Democratic candidates fare even worse. These findings help to explain the persistence of black legislative underrepresentation and contribute to theories of partisan racial realignment.

Legislators' Response to Changes in the Electorate: The Great Migration and Civil Rights

Between 1940 and 1970 more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized racial discrimination. This paper shows that the Great Migration and support for civil rights are causally linked. Predicting Black inflows with a version of the shift-share instrument, we find that the Great Migration increased support for the Democratic Party and encouraged pro-civil rights activism in northern and western counties. These effects were driven by both Black and white voters, and were stronger in counties with a lower history of discrimination and with a larger working class and unionized white population. Mirroring the changes in the electorate, non-southern Congress members became more likely to promote civil rights legislation. Yet, these average effects mask heterogeneity in the behavior of legislators, who grew increasingly polarized along party lines on racial issues. Overall, our findings indicate that the Great Migration promoted Black political empowerment outside the South. They also suggest that, under certain conditions, cross-race coalitions can be major drivers of social and political change.

The Role of Whiteness in the 2016 Presidential Primaries

Donald Trump initiated his run for president by framing the United States as a nation in descent. Adopting the slogan “Make America Great Again,” he set his campaign against a backdrop of loss and declared a mission for reclamation. Numerous analysts claim that his candidacy and rhetoric galvanized white voters who feel left behind by changing times, but few have been able to provide direct evidence of a racialized sense of disadvantage, and most polls were not prepared to ask such specific questions prior to the Iowa Caucus. Using data from the National Study of Color-Blindness and Race-Consciousness—a unique nationally-sampled dataset fielded two weeks before the beginning of the 2016 primary election season—I demonstrate that Trump was not only the most popular candidate among white voters, but that he was especially supported by whites who think that their racial group fares worse in the job market than do black Americans, who feel that being white has been personally detrimental to their job prospects; who believe that there are generally more disadvantages to being white than there are advantages; and who disagree with the notion that systematic racism mainly benefits whites. My analysis argues that how whites think about whiteness mattered for their likelihood to support Donald Trump.

Secular Partisan Realignment in the United States: The Socioeconomic Reconfiguration of White Partisan Support since the New Deal Era

White American voters have realigned among the two dominant parties by income and education levels. This article argues that the interaction of education and income provides a more insightful—and stark—display of this change than treating them individually. Each group of voters is associated with distinctive “first dimension” views of economic redistribution and “second dimension” preferences concerning salient sociopolitical issues of civic and cultural liberties, race, and immigration. Macro-level hypotheses are developed about the changing voting behavior of education-income voting groups along with micro-level hypotheses about the propensity of vote switching. The hypotheses are tested with data from the American National Election Studies 1952–2016. A profound realignment is revealed between (groups of) white voters and the two main US parties that is consistent with the theoretical expectations developed in the article.

Authoritarianism and support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election

The emergence of authoritarianism as a core political value has been emphasized by recent scholarship on the political behavior of the American electorate. This paper adds to this literature by examining the effect of authoritarianism in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Given the campaign style of Trump and the issues that he made salient in his campaign, it is hypothesized that authoritarianism should have a substantial effect on vote choice of whites. Using data from the American National Election Studies (ANES), logistic regression models of presidential vote choice of white respondents are estimated to ascertain the effect of authoritarianism in presidential elections from 1992 to 2016, controlling for party identification, ideology and several standard demographic control variables. Findings indicate that authoritarianism had the largest effect on white vote choice in 2016 than in any prior election that was analyzed. The candidacy of Trump appears to have been the triggering mechanism given that authoritarianism was a less salient predictor of U.S. House vote choice in 2016. Moreover, this relationship was true for both college and non-college educated whites. Authoritarianism also seems to have been primed by Trump appealing to racial animus, anti-immigration sentiment, nativism, and anti-Muslim prejudice. Authoritarianism is likely to remain a salient determinant of vote choice during the Trump era. Indeed, a widening and deepening of this cleavage means its effects are likely to be apparent in elections below the presidency.

From hierarchy to rivalry: Asian candidate evaluation in changing racial contexts

Existing studies on candidate evaluation have posited that racial cues would invoke negative attitudes toward outgroups, thus lowering support for minority candidates. However, recent studies have found that even implicit racial cues show no negative effect but actually work positively in favor of the minority candidates. In this study, I explore this puzzle by setting up a survey experiment that pairs an Asian candidate against competitors with varying racial backgrounds. Consistent with the existing evidence, I found that White voters tend to support an Asian candidate to a greater degree than a co‐ethnic, White competitor. However, departing from the previous studies that have explained this tendency as a reward for model minority, I argue that such a pattern is associated with reaffirming Whites’ ingroup identity in a racial hierarchy by compensating minorities. When the apparent racial hierarchy—White versus non‐White—is replaced with a minority‐only context, Whites no longer need to favor an Asian candidate and divide their support more evenly to the two minority candidates. I further show that this tendency is moderated by the intensity of their ingroup attitudes.

Can Violent Protest Change Local Policy Support? Evidence from the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot

Violent protests are dramatic political events, yet we know little about the effect of these events on political behavior. While scholars typically treat violent protests as deliberate acts undertaken in pursuit of specific goals, due to a lack of appropriate data and difficulty in causal identification, there is scant evidence of whether riots can actually increase support for these goals. Using geocoded data, we analyze measures of policy support before and after the 1992 Los Angeles riot—one of the most high-profile events of political violence in recent American history—that occurred just prior to an election. Contrary to some expectations from the academic literature and the popular press, we find that the riot caused a marked liberal shift in policy support at the polls. Investigating the sources of this shift, we find that it was likely the result of increased mobilization of both African American and white voters. Remarkably, this mobilization endures over a decade later.

Sowing the Wind: The Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890

In Sowing the Wind, Dorothy Overstreet Pratt offers a well-written, detailed treatment of the Mississippi Constitution Convention of 1890 and the controversial governing document it produced. Pratt argues that the convention was much more than a political gathering designed to neutralize African American voting strength and the effects of Reconstruction in general. It was also a turning point in the history of the state, when a class-based social structure rooted in the antebellum period gave way to a new, more volatile structure driven to an even greater extent by racial concerns. On the surface, the motives behind calling the convention seem clear cut. It was sold in 1890 as a much-needed step in the process of taking away political power in the state from former slaves and their progeny. It was supposedly an effort to right the wrongs of federal Reconstruction and place political power firmly in the hands of the more responsible white electorate. As Pratt argues, this is a narrow view of the historical record, and the convention did not represent merely an electoral purge. The gathering became a power struggle within the white political universe between the elite class that had traditionally exercised control, and the mass of poorer whites who wanted their voices heard. The former group lived in counties with substantial black populations over whom they held economic sway, while the latter came from areas where whites were a significant majority. This struggle between the politicians of the “black counties” and those of the “white counties” provides a framework for the book. Amid the turmoil, Isaiah Montgomery emerges as the convention's most enigmatic character. As the gathering's only African American delegate, he supported the new constitution, and the motives behind his decision still seem curious. In the end, the convention accomplished its goal of curtailing the black vote, and much more. Pratt points out that the race-based agenda of the Mississippi meeting contributed to a permanent shift in political power from the paternalistic elites of the state's old guard to demagogues, personified by men such as James K. Vardeman, who won the loyalty of many white voters by spewing unrestrained racial hatred on the campaign trail. The political foundation thus formed among the mass of Mississippi whites “included a virulent racism, a paranoia over strong government and higher taxes, and a loathing of northern influence, such as industrial development” (p. 7). This process was not unique to Mississippi, and it set the stage for decades of racially based economic stagnation in the South, and, ultimately, for the rise of the civil rights movement.

Vote Switching in the 2016 Election: How Racial and Immigration Attitudes, Not Economics, Explain Shifts in White Voting

Vote Switching in the 2016 Election: How Racial and Immigration Attitudes, Not Economics, Explain Shifts in White Voting

Citizens’ Councils, Conservatism and White Supremacy in Louisiana, 1964-1972

This article examines the development of Massive Resistance, in particular Citizens’ Councils, in Louisiana after the council movement in the South had passed its zenith when being unable to prevent the passage of federal civil rights and voting rights legislation. This article argues that grassroots white supremacist groups in Louisiana faced a winding path of decline and revitalization, and a number of councils proved adaptive to the changing political, social, and economic landscape by devising activist strategies that focused on direct action, white voter registration, and tapping into broader conservative discourses on law and order, welfare, and morality. Similar to questions about a “long civil rights movement,” white supremacist resistance against the civil rights movement did not vanish in the latter half of the 1960s but transformed its rhetoric while seeking to align with the conservatism.

The Power of Place? Testing the Geographic Determinants of African‐American and White Voter Turnout*

ObjectiveThis article evaluates the geographic determinants of both white and African‐American voter turnout in presidential elections. We argue that perceptions of threat posed by African Americans influence white turnout, although the possibility of interracial contact can ameliorate these attitudes. Conversely, we contend the size of the co‐racial population and segregation drives variations in African‐American turnout.MethodWe utilize geographic information systems (ArcGIS) mapping software in conjunction with Census and turnout data from the state of Louisiana. We test our hypotheses using a series of hierarchical linear regressions.ResultsWe find that African‐American turnout is highest in parishes where African Americans represent a majority and segregation levels are low. White turnout is highest among whites in racially segregated, predominately white precincts.ConclusionWe conclude that different demographic factors drive variations in white and African‐American turnout.

Ethno-Racial Appeals and the Production of Political Capital: Evidence from Chicago and Toronto

Ethno-racial appeals mobilize individuals through their social categories. Such appeals matter especially in municipal elections, where partisan cues are often absent and turnout is low. This article presents findings from an analysis of ethno-racial appeals in 914 campaign documents from the 2014 Toronto and 2015 Chicago municipal elections. It reveals that campaigns frequently target non-White and White ethnic voters through explicit appeals. These appeals do not fit into the existing framework of racial priming theory. Drawing instead on Bourdieu’s theory of capital, the article conceptualizes ethno-racial appeals as attempts to produce or destroy a candidate’s political capital among specific groups. Campaigns do this directly by making claims about the group’s purported interests or indirectly by invoking candidates’ relevant cultural or social capital. Analyzing ethno-racial appeals in this way helps to comprehend the mobilization of non-Whites, illuminates the production of ethno-racial voting, and contributes to the understanding of place-based culture.

Perceptual Knots and Black Identity Politics: Linked Fate, American Heritage, and Support for Trump Era Immigration Policy

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, much ado has been made about how racial anxiety fueled White vote choice for Donald Trump. Far less empirical attention has been paid to whether the 2016 election cycle triggered black anxieties and if those anxieties led blacks to reevaluate their communities’ standing relative to Latinos and immigrants. Employing data from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, we examine the extent to which race consciousness both coexists with black perceptions of Latinos and shapes black support for anti-immigrant legislation. Our results address how the conflation of Latino with undocumented immigrant may have activated a perceptional and policy backlash amongst black voters.

Rückkehr zum „divided government“, aber die „blaue Welle“ bleibt auf halbem Wege stecken: Die US-Kongresswahlen vom 6. November 2018

The 2018 Congressional elections ended with an ambivalent result for both the Democrats and Republicans . The turnout recorded the best result in almost a century . The Democrats were able to recapture a significant majority in the U .S . House of Representatives by winning particularly among white and female voters while solidifying their support among Democrats-leaning groups like African-Americans and Hispanics . The Republicans were not only able to defend their slim majority in the U .S . Senate but even increased their majority by two seats . The current 116th Congress, especially the House of Representatives, represents the most diverse make-up in history . At the same time, it is one of the politically least experienced . Under the current conditions of divided government an intensified confrontation between the Democrats in the House of Representatives and President Trump can be expected . Moreover, the forthcoming 2020 presidential election already casts its shadows . [ZParl, vol . 50 (2019), no . 4, pp . 810 - 829]