Gone For Good: Deindustrialization, White Voter Backlash, and US Presidential Voting

Abstract

Globalization and automation have contributed to deindustrialization and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs, yielding important electoral implications across advanced democracies. Coupling insights from economic voting and social identity theory, we consider how different groups in society may construe manufacturing job losses in contrasting ways. We argue that deindustrialization threatens dominant group status, leading some white voters in affected localities to favor candidates they believe will address economic distress and defend racial hierarchy. Examining three US presidential elections, we find white voters were more likely to vote for Republican challengers where manufacturing layoffs were high, whereas Black voters in hard-hit localities were more likely to vote for Democrats. In survey data, white respondents, in contrast to people of color, associated local manufacturing job losses with obstacles to individual upward mobility and with broader American economic decline. Group-based identities help explain divergent political reactions to common economic shocks.

Are Populists Insecure About Themselves or About Their Country? Political Attitudes and Economic Perceptions

“…In a recent paper, Baccini and Weymouth ( 2021 ) found that white voters were more likely to support Trump in light of local manufacturing layoffs, with their argument being this group perceives such job losses as a threat to upward mobility. Replication of their method using ANES data suggests that their measure of job displacement is far more correlated with our macro insecurity index than with our micro metric.…”

Decline, radicalization and the attack on the US Capitol

“…However, studies show that support for Trump among non-college educated whites was driven more by status threat, racism and sexism than by economic conditions (Mutz, 2018; Schaffner et al, 2018). Of course, deindustrialization can exacerbate status threat, so the relationship is complex (Baccini and Weymouth, 2021). However, even if economic conditions are important underlying factors, the response to those conditions is heavily mediated by ideology, and hardly constitutes a straightforwardly rational reaction.…”

Turning Away From the State: Trade Shocks and Informal Insurance in Brazil

“…For example, Baccini and Weymouth (2021) show that localized manufacture layoffs increase support for the Republican party in the US only among white voters.…”

“…However, politicians can combine anti-establishment and populist rhetoric with many different policy positions and dimensions (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2018). I argue that economic shocks interact with local context and individual predispositions to shape the appeal of mainstream and challenger parties (Zaller and Feldman, 1992;Baccini and Weymouth, 2021). More specifically, I focus on formal and informal organizations' role in supporting citizens during times of economic hardship (security schemes).…”

“…To test these hypotheses, I examine three consecutive Presidential elections in Brazil (2010Brazil ( , 2014Brazil ( , and 2018. Similarly to previous research in economics and political science (Autor et al, 2016;Colantone and Stanig, 2018b,a;Campello and Urdinez, 2020;Costa et al, 2016;Baccini and Weymouth, 2021), I measure the exposure of local labor markets to the drop in Brazilian exports between 2011 and 2018 by constructing a shift-share instrument (Bartik, 1987;Goldsmith-Pinkham et al, 2018;Borusyak et al, 2018). I rely on electoral and census data to analyze the effect of the export shock on changes in PT vote shares in this period in regions with different concentrations of CCTs beneficiaries and Evangelicals.…”