Vanishing wealth, vanishing votes? Latino homeownership and the 2016 election in Florida

Abstract

In this article, I explore how race, class, and migration influence Latino household wealth, and uncover important implications for the close 2016 US presidential election outcome in Florida. I follow over 11,000 homeowners in the Orlando area of Orange County, Florida from 2004 to 2016. To proxy for immigrant incorporation, I leverage matched voter registration records and direct observation of borrower identificationdriver's license, green card/passport, or undocumented identification. Documented immigrants appear least vulnerable to foreclosure; multivariate analyses show that Latinos with undocumented identification are most vulnerable. Foreclosure and negative equity predict decreases in voter activity among Latino Democrats and Latino Independents, respectively, but not among Latino Republicans. I confirm this pattern at the precinctlevel using data on all Orange County voters. Across Florida, county-level Latino foreclosures and lagging home prices correspond to a decline in the Democratic presidential vote from 2012 to 2016. My analysis reveals the mechanisms that erase Latino home equity and how the loss of wealth may have played a role in flipping Florida from a blue state to a red state.

Making noncitizens' rights real: Evidence from immigration scam complaints

“…In addition, it remains possible that unmeasured factors affect both (a) where noncitizens lodge FTC complaints and (b) variation in the contexts of reception. Scam reports may be influenced by variation in immigrant civic participation (Ebert & Okamoto, 2013; García Bedolla, 2014; Terriquez, 2012) or other determinants of engagement such as economic downturns, evictions, and foreclosures (Rugh, 2020; Slee & Desmond, 2021). In analyses not presented above, proxies of these measures (e.g., protest size per noncitizens during the spring 2006 immigration marches, lagged unemployment rates, etc.)…”

Smart Homes and Families to Enable Sustainable Societies: A Data-Driven Approach for Multi-Perspective Parameter Discovery using BERT Modelling

“…Sclafani [179] explained political identities can be framed using inherited identities derived from family. Rugh [180] explored how migration, race, and class affect Latino household wealth. Finger et al [181] argued that voters' evaluation of a politician is influenced by family composition, particularly parental status when supporting a candidate.…”

Housing, place and populism: Towards a research agenda

“…While emerging research suggests correlations between populist voting, stagnant housing markets and financial stress (Adler and Ansell, 2020;Kiss et al, 2020;Rugh, 2019), housing discontent seeks to examine how the 'lived experiences' of housing hardships shape peoples' lives in local contexts and influence their political understanding. For example, it may consider new-generational fractures in the rental market and how young adults' experiences of unaffordable, lightly regulated and insecure tenancies might influence protest voting for left-populist movements, such as Barcelona en Comu in Spain, which arose out of the city's eviction protest movement (Gessen, 2018).…”

“…While acknowledging such a contingency, as well as the increasing centrality of housing to political-economic debates on wealth and welfare (Aalbers and Christophers, 2014), this article also asserts that scholarship has for too long overlooked the potential role that housing might play in shaping political attitudes and preferences, both theoretically and empirically. Emerging research suggests correlations between populist voting, local housing market performance (Ansell, 2019) and financial stress (Kiss et al, 2020;Rugh, 2019), but the specific ways housing hardships shape citizens' social attitudes, political values and preferences, and their acceptance of populist rhetoric, remains underexplored. It is unclear how the 'lived experiences' of precarity regarding housing affordability, accessibility, security and the physical qualities of home and place might influence political disaffection.…”