Racial or Spatial Voting? The Effects of Candidate Ethnicity and Ethnic Group Endorsements in Local Elections

Abstract

With the growth of Latino and Asian American populations, candidates frequently must appeal to diverse electorates. Strategies for doing so include emphasizing candidates' racial/ethnic identity and securing endorsements from racial/ethnic groups. While many scholars focus on candidates' racial/ethnic attributes, ethnic group endorsements are understudied. Whether such endorsements induce voters to choose ideologically similar candidates (spatial voting), or choose based on race/ethnicity (racial voting) is unclear. We address this question by examining elections in multiethnic local settings. Using original surveys and exit polls, we create comparable measures of candidate and voter ideology, and examine how race/ethnicity and ideology affect voters' choices. We also embed experiments that manipulate ethnic group endorsements. We find that ideology influences voters' choices, but that ethnic group endorsements weaken spatial voting. The latter effect among whites is driven by racial/ethnic stereotypes. These reactions explain why some candidates seek such endorsements and why others might prefer to avoid them.

Messaging Matters: How Information about Underrepresentation Affects the Political Participation of Racial and Ethnic Groups in California

“…In contrast, other studies find that the nature of the message does seem to matter for mobilization, at least among certain groups like young people and Latinos (Green and Vavreck 2008;Valenzuela and Michelson 2016). These findings are also consistent with survey and lab experimental work on messaging and engagement (e.g., DeFrancesco Soto and Merolla 2006;Merolla et al 2013), as well as studies of ethnic group endorsements (Boudreau, Elmendorf, and MacKenzie 2019). These studies offer reason to believe that how GOTV messages are communicated might matter for increasing the participation of underrepresented groups.…”

The Effect of Associative Racial Cues in Elections

“…For example, group attachment is not a more powerful predictor of support for Dave Wilson in conditions where there is a black associative cue among African Americans, as previous research would predict. Similarly, in contrast to explicit ethnic group endorsements (Boudreau, Elmendorf, and MacKenzie, 2019), racial associative cues do not encourage white respondents to rely on party identification or ideology to a greater extent. 26 Our results instead align with the findings from Valentino, Neuner, and Vandenbroek (2018), which show that Americans, both white and black, have changed how they view, interpret, and respond to racial cues in recent years.…”

Trust, Communication, and Information after The Democratic Dilemma

“…In a related study, Druckman (2001b) examined whether and when citizens consider political actors and newspapers as credible sources of advice. Other scholars considered the conditions under which citizens respond to endorsements from interest groups, prominent politicians, and racial/ethnic groups in presidential, congressional, and local elections (Arceneaux and Kolodny 2009; Boudreau, Elmendorf, and MacKenzie 2019; McDermott 2006; Nicholson 2012). These studies also were informed by The Democratic Dilemma and focused on how an endorser’s credibility affects citizens’ responses.…”