Partisan Learning or Racial Learning: Opinion Change on Sanctuary City Policy Preferences in CA and TX

Abstract

Significant research indicates that attitude change is often a product of partisan learning. However, as the party system continues to rearrange around issues of race and immigration, and as new racial policy issues thrust onto the agenda, it is unclear whether voters learn to adopt racial policy attitudes more based on race/ethnicity or on party identification. We evaluate the partisan-learning model versus a racial-learning model with regards to public opinion on sanctuary cities/policies among survey respondents in CA and TX. Given President Trump's public antipathy toward sanctuary cities, we argue and show that negative partisanship is the most plausible vehicle for sanctuary city attitude change between 2015 and 2017. In this particular case, we find no support for a racial/ethnic-learning model.

Immigrant Sanctuary Policies and Crime-Reporting Behavior: A Multilevel Analysis of Reports of Crime Victimization to Law Enforcement, 1980 to 2004

“…Second, our study is also limited by the scope of the NCVS: MSA Data, which only provides geographic-identified information of crime victimization up to 2004. Our analyses do not consider the more recent wave of sanctuary policies (Collingwood, Gonzalez O'Brien, and Tafoya 2020). Future research should attempt to replicate our analyses with more recent victimization data that include measures of victims' subnational, geographic locations within the United States.…”

Partisan Attitudes toward Sanctuary Cities: The Asymmetrical Effects of Political Knowledge

“…Sanctuary polices have also become more politicized. Respondents across parties generally opposed sanctuary policies in 2015, which was the first recent year when pollsters surveyed respondents on sanctuary attitudes (Collingwood, Gonzalez O’Brien, and Tafoya ). Partisans had begun to realign by 2017, however.…”

“…Indeed, they tend to attract support among Democratic elites and voters, along with opposition from their Republican counterparts (Casellas and Wallace ). Yet, given sanctuary policies’ recent entrance as a high‐profile political topic, voters have only recently begun to crystallize their opinions about them (Collingwood, Gonzalez O’Brien, and Tafoya ). Our research examines the relationship between political knowledge and attitudes toward sanctuary policies and suggests asymmetrical processes by which Democrats and Republicans align their personal attitudes with their political parties’ platforms.…”

Demographic Moderation of Spatial Voting in Presidential Elections

“…Race is consistently demonstrated to be one of the most important cleavages in American politics, as it is a critical driver of political socialization and voting behavior. Race has been posited to be an identity that voters may use to update issue positions (Collingwood et al, 2019), and racial identity may also supersede other influences, such as class, in the development and maintenance of political attitudes over time (Dawson, 1994; Tate, 1993). The importance of race in the development of political beliefs suggests that certain issues may systematically vary in salience and ideological centrality across racial groups.…”