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.
With the changing demography of the United States, there has been a significant growth in the literature focused on inter-group attitudes. While this has advanced our understanding of how pervasive ...negative inter-group attitudes are among racial and ethnic populations, little work has been able to explore these attitudes across multiple populations. This is a significant drawback, as it prevents the ability to establish any frame of reference when examining any specific relationship among populations under study. Drawing on the 2008 Collaborative Multiracial Political Study (CMPS), we examine perceptions of both intra- and inter-group competition among Latinos, Blacks, Asian Americans, and Whites. Our research design makes four important contributions to the literature: (1) we examine the correlation between perceptions of competition across multiple racial groups simultaneously; (2) we include a measure of internal-competition to test whether perceptions of competition with one's own group lead to higher levels of perceived competition with outside groups; (3) we test the relative impact of real and perceived neighborhood diversity on perceptions of competition; and finally, (4) we examine the relationship between perceived competition and other racial attitudes to gain a better understanding of whether perceptions of competition should be interpreted as evidence of inter-group tension or conflict.
The importance of the Latino electorate has been the subject of both academic inquiry and media discourses. The question of Latino influence is frequently limited by an approach that focuses on ...single variable considerations (e.g., voter turnout or ethnic-targeted campaign spending) that are often contest-specific idiosyncrasies. Relying on theoretically appropriate concepts, the authors measure Latino political influence as a function of three factors: in-group population traits, electoral volatility, and mobilization. Using the 2008 presidential election, the authors demonstrate the utility of incorporating a multifaceted measure that accounts for the contemporary complexity within the electoral environment. Because this framework is rooted in theoretical concepts, as opposed to discrete group or contest characteristics, it may be applied to any "influence group" in different electoral settings. Data are culled from several publicly available outlets, making it possible for scholars to replicate these measures and further investigate questions associated with group influence in American politics.
Change they can't believe in Parker, Christopher S; Barreto, Matt A; Parker, Christopher S
2014., 20130521
eBook
Are Tea Party supporters merely a group of conservative citizens concerned about government spending? Or are they racists who refuse to accept Barack Obama as their president because he's not ...white?Change They Can't Believe Inoffers an alternative argument--that the Tea Party is driven by the reemergence of a reactionary movement in American politics that is fueled by a fear that America has changed for the worse. Providing a range of original evidence and rich portraits of party sympathizers as well as activists, Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto show that what actually pushes Tea Party supporters is not simple ideology or racism, but fear that the country is being stolen from "real Americans"--a belief triggered by Obama's election. From civil liberties and policy issues, to participation in the political process, the perception that America is in danger directly informs how Tea Party supporters think and act.
The authors argue that this isn't the first time a segment of American society has perceived the American way of life as under siege. In fact, movements of this kind often appear when some individuals believe that "American" values are under threat by rapid social changes. Drawing connections between the Tea Party and right-wing reactionary movements of the past, including the Know Nothing Party, the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, and the John Birch Society, Parker and Barreto develop a framework that transcends the Tea Party to shed light on its current and future consequences.
Linking past and present reactionary movements,Change They Can't Believe Inrigorously examines the motivations and political implications associated with today's Tea Party.
Given the fluid context of primaries and observed swings in national polls, many Democratic voters likely switched candidate support over the course of the 2008 primary campaign. We examine how ...perceptions of early caucus and primary outcomes subsequently affected voter choice and candidate momentum. Although the 2008 calendar left many voters with a brief window to assess candidates, it nonetheless allowed a non-front-runner to benefit from momentum and win the Democratic nomination. This article employs a panel study of voters surveyed at two time points during the nomination contest to assess individual-level change in candidate support. Results from the earlier states sent signals about candidate viability to people who had not yet voted. We find that voters deciding after results were in from early states changed their perceptions of candidate viability and that this changed whom they intended to support. We conclude that momentum remains an important factor in presidential nominations.
The authors reply to Zax's critique of the double-equation method for ecological regression and of the specific extension to it proposed by Grofman and Migalski. Although Zax does correct two minor ...errors in Grofman and Migalski's statement of the double-equation approach, neither of those errors affected the final calculations reported in their article. Furthermore, nothing Zax reports affects their fundamental conclusion that double-equation methods can be superior to single-equation techniques if there is substantial error in the measurement of the independent variable. In particular, by analyzing an election for which, from exit polls, the ``true'' parameters of Hispanic and non-Hispanic levels of political cohesion are known, the authors show that double-equation ecological regression estimates derived from registration data are highly accurate in reproducing the true individual-level behavioral parameters (group means).
Since the 2000 presidential election, voter education and mobilization have witnessed a renaissance in targeted contact and segmented messaging. Candidates, political parties, and interest groups ...have taken advantage of advances in electronic databases to divide and subdivide the electorate into different groups and have different messages and messengers for each subgroup of voters. This article takes up the question of whether or not personalized or segmented contact during a campaign is more successful at convincing voters than "generic" contact or no contact at all. Using data from a national survey of Latino registered voters in 2004, the authors examine the impact of being contacted by a coethnic messenger on support for the Republican and Democratic Parties. While some previous studies have examined voter turnout or vote choice, this article examines the deeper implications of coethnic contact, including support for public policy and candidate favorability. The authors find that when Latinos were contacted by non-Latino Republicans, they were significantly less likely to support Bush and Republican issues, but when Latinos were contacted by Latino Republicans, they were significantly more likely to support Bush and Republican issues. Democratic contact did not have a significant effect on support for Democratic policy, which remained very high among Latino voters.
We evaluate a theory of campaign learning in the context of immigration and the 2012 Latino vote. Following events in Nevada and Arizona after the 2008 election and prior to the 2012 election, we ...argue and show that Obama's campaign team learned from several Democratic U.S. Senate campaigns in how best to mobilize the Latino vote on the issue of immigration. As a result, we argue, this campaign learning led to an increase in the Latino vote for Obama. To demonstrate this, we compare a group-based appeals model against a traditional vote-choice model, and show that variables measuring Latino Outreach had the greatest impact on the 2012 Latino vote – above and beyond party identification and other traditional vote-choice predictors.
•Obama learned from Senator Reid on how best to appeal to Latino voters.•Effectiveness group-based appeals can increase turnout and vote-share among Latinos.•Obama benefitted more from group-based appeals than did Senate candidates.
More than forty years after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a fundamental question remains unanswered: although all citizens have an equal right to the ballot, do all citizens enjoy equal ...access to the ballot box? That is, are voting precincts in predominantly low-income and non-white neighborhoods less visible, less stable, harder to find, and harder to navigate than voting precincts in high-income and predominantly white neighborhoods? If so, does the lower quality result in lower levels of voting, all other things equal? The authors' analysis indicates that the quality of polling places varies across the diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles and that the quality of polling places influences voter turnout. Low-income and minority communities tended to have "lower quality" precincts, which tended to depress voter turnout.
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