Unhyphenated Americans in the 2010 U.S. House Election

Abstract

Sociologists have identified an emerging new ethnic population of “unhyphenated Americans,” those whites who claim an “American” ancestry, or none at all. This article measures the voting habits of these individuals in the 2010 elections. Research has shown that Barack Obama’s vote share suffered in the 2008 election in regions where these voters are concentrated. This paper extends that analysis to the 2010 midterm elections. I find that in districts where unhyphenated Americans are concentrated, Democratic candidates suffered reduced vote share and chances of victory. These findings show the importance of identity politics among white voters and raise further questions about the role of ethnicity and voting.

The Political Behavior of “Unhyphenated Americans”: An Individual‐Level Analysis of Causes and Consequences*

“…Lieberson and Waters () also offer the social desirability effect as an explanation: less‐educated individuals may simply be less embarrassed to admit ignorance of their ancestry. The “lack of education” explanation is disputed, however, by Arbour (), who instead argues that unhyphenated self‐identification is much more likely a deliberate choice (not ignorance) on the part of the individual.…”

“…This second explanation offered by Arbour () is that the choice to identify as an unhyphenated American speaks more to one's patriotism and national loyalty than it does about education and ignorance. Arbour and Teigen () further argue that unhyphenated Americans are “super‐patriots” who are so enthusiastic about their nationality that they eschew any non‐American provenance.…”

“…In a separate analysis, Arbour () uses a similar approach and examines aggregate congressional district data to explore the link between unhyphenated self‐identification and voting for Democratic congressional House candidates in the 2010 midterm election. Consistent with Arbour and Teigen (), he finds that higher levels of unhyphenated Americans residing in a particular congressional district is associated with lower proportions of the vote the Democratic candidate received and thus a higher probability that the Democratic candidate lost that particular congressional election.…”

“…Pundits as well as scholars have noticed the obvious overlap between these two maps: the same regions of the country that have a stronger concentration of unhyphenated Americans also seem to have an unusually high antipathy for Barack Obama specifically as well as Democratic congressional candidates in general (see, e.g., Arbour and Teigen, ; Arbour, ; Barone, ; Joseph, ). These analysts have offered several explanations for why Americans of obvious European descent would choose to self‐identify as “American” as well as the political consequences that this self‐identification seems to entail.…”

“…While this existing research has shed much light on the behavior of unhyphenated Americans, it has been limited in some important aspects. Specifically, most studies examining American ancestral self‐identification have been forced to rely on aggregate data (usually county‐level) in their analyses as the ANES and other prominent political surveys do not routinely ask for the respondents’ ancestry, and those surveys that do ask for ancestry often omit politically relevant variables (Arbour, :17). In response, this article draws upon a novel individual‐level survey data set that includes both sets of questions, something that has not yet been available to previous researchers.…”