Do White In-group Processes Matter, Too? White Racial Identity and Support for Black Political Candidates

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

“…Tesler (2012) also finds that racial resentment better predicted support for Obamacare than for Bill Clinton's health reform proposal in 1993. In combination, these results suggest a spillover effect of racial resentment from the presidential level (see also Petrow, Transue and Vercellotti (2017) and Luttig and Motta (2017)). In short, the effects of candidate race and racial resentment on vote choice are not easily distinguished from one another-even in contests where there is no black candidate.…”

“…Moskowitz and Stroh (1994) suggest that black candidates receive poorer evaluations from white voters. In addition, Petrow, Transue and Vercellotti (2017) find that white in-group identity makes white voters less likely to support black candidates. Furthermore, when black politicians run for office, their campaigns tend to feature more racial campaign messages, which further prime voters to incorporate their racial attitudes into their vote choice (McIlwain and Caliendo 2011).…”

“…Finally, several authors have suggested that white voters’ negative racial attitudes toward blacks not only harm black candidates but all Democrats running for office, by dint of their association with civil rights and other policy positions supported by blacks (Aistrup 1996; Brewer and Stonecash 2001; Edsall and Edsall 1992). For instance, recent analyses have shown that racial resentment toward Obama “spilled over” into the 2010 (Petrow, Transue and Vercellotti 2017; Tesler 2013) and 2014 (Luttig and Motta 2017) midterm elections, with Democratic congressional candidates receiving fewer votes from high resentment white voters by dint of their association with President Obama. Even in the absence of a racially polarizing black political figure, racialized campaign messaging has been found to be effective for altering the candidate and policy preferences of white voters (Algara and Hale 2019; Hurwitz and Peffley 2005; Mendelberg 1997; 2008; Valentino, Hutchings and White 2015).…”

Race politics research and the American presidency: thinking about white attitudes, identities and vote choice in the Trump era and beyond

“…Our results provide relatively consistent evidence that white identity may have influenced support for Trump in the Republican primary. However, it is not clear whether this is because his strongest opponents were Latinos (Cruz and Rubio), which would be consistent with the Petrow et al (2018) thesis that white identity comes to play only in interracial contests, or if political judgments in primary settings are qualitatively different than in general elections. In essence, a primary election may require white voters to determine who best represents two key identities: party and race.…”

Race‐Based Stress in White Adults: Exploring the Role of White Racial Identity Status Attitudes and Type of Racial Events

“…White racial identity status attitudes reflect a person's understanding (or lack thereof) of how race functions in the United States, how membership in their racial group affects them (if at all), and their views of others within and outside of their racial group. The extant literature has implicated White racial identity status attitudes in racial socialization practices of White parents, support for Black political candidates, empathy about racism toward people of color, and negative emotions (e.g., fear) when faced with racial information (Chao, Wei, Spanierman, Longo, & Northart, 2015;Petrov, Transue, & Vercelloti, 2018;Zucker & Patterson, 2018). More specifically, least integrated or immature White racial identity status attitudes (i.e., contact, disintegration, and reintegration) have been associated with a low frequency of explicit racial socialization of children, decreased support for Black politicians, and increased fear when confronted with racial information.…”