How Negative Sentiment toward Muslim Americans Predicts Support for Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election

Abstract

Since 9/11, scholarly work has demonstrated that Muslim Americans are viewed unfavorably, but existing measures lack enough contextual specificity to capture the unique experiences and situation of Muslims in the United States. Given the central role that Muslims and the war on terror played in the 2016 presidential campaign and election, we fill this void by introducing a new measure that focuses on Muslim Americans, specifically, and then examine its role in explaining presidential vote choice in 2016. Across five distinct surveys fielded on convenience and nationally representative samples from May 2016 to June 2017, we find that anti-Muslim American sentiment is a strong and significant predictor of supporting Trump, even when controlling for a whole host of factors. Our measure of Muslim American sentiment also more strongly and consistently predicts support for Trump, relative to previous measures of anti-Muslim sentiment. S ince 9/11, scholarly work has demonstrated that Muslim Americans are viewed unfavorably and evaluated negatively along a series of stereotypes (e.g., Kalkan, Layman, and Uslaner 2009; Khan and Ecklund 2013; Panagopoulos 2006; Sides and Gross 2013). But the existing measures of Muslim American resentment (e.g., favorability ratings, feeling thermometers, group stereotypes) lack enough contextual specificity to capture the unique experiences of Muslims in the United States, particularly in light of the specific group stereotypes that have arisen in the aftermath of 9/11 and the War on Terror. Thus, to date, we lack any systematic or empirical evidence to determine the extent to which attitudes toward Muslim Americans have affected political outcomes. This is a critical oversight given the undeniable role that attitudes toward Muslims played in Donald Trump's primary and general election campaigns during the 2016 US presidential election. A key pillar of his campaign was the highly controversial promise of a ban on all Muslim immigration to the United States, which drew resounding cheers and standing ovations from his supporters. He also supported a national registry for all Muslims residing in the United States, as well as surveillance at mosques. These calls arrived at a time when anti-Muslim sentiment and discrimination were already quite high (Calfano, Lajevardi, and Michelson 2017; Collingwood, Lajevardi, and Oskooii 2017). In light of the increasingly negative rhetoric directed toward Muslim Americans, which in turn could stoke the fears and anxieties of US voters, resentment toward them could have produced a very real and tangible impact on the way voters cast their ballots in the 2016 general election. 1 This may be especially true in light of the way negative attitudes toward minority groups have been shown to influence political attitudes and behaviors (Kalmoe and Piston 2013; Masuoka and Junn 2013; Parker and Barreto 2014). To more accurately assess the role that Muslim American sentiment played in explaining 2016 presidential Nazita Lajevardi

Countering Misperceptions to Reduce Prejudice: An Experiment on Attitudes toward Muslim Americans

“…Respondents answered five outcome questions meant to capture both perceptions of Muslim Americans and views of how the government should treat Muslim Americans (Lajevardi and Abrajano 2018). Regarding perceptions, respondents rated Muslim Americans on a feeling thermometer, and they were also asked if Muslim Americans were just as patriotic as other Americans.…”

Intellectual humility in the sociopolitical domain

“…Part of this change involved the increasing political salience of religious identities, including the reliable and widespread identification between evangelical Christians and the Republican Party (e.g., Layman, 2001). Additionally, in the post-9/ 11 period, anti-Muslim prejudice has been widespread and politically relevant (e.g., Kalkan, Layman, & Uslaner, 2009;Lajevardi & Oskooii, 2018;Panagopoulos, 2006;Sides & Gross, 2013), significantly predicting support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election (Lajevardi & Abrajano, 2019). In this context, Muslims have come to be an important outgroup for many supporters of Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and evangelical Christians.…”

Americans preferred Syrian refugees who are female, English-speaking, and Christian on the eve of Donald Trump’s election

“…We know that Americans prefer high-skilled English-speaking immigrants [1], and that Europeans prioritize asylum-seekers with higher employability and greater humanitarian need [2]. We also know that anti-Muslim bias pervades American politics [3] as well as public preferences for immigrants and asylum-seekers [1, 2, 4]. Yet our knowledge of American preferences towards refugees, a particularly vulnerable population, and in a country which until recently accepted the largest number of resettled refugees annually, can be broadened.…”