When are Stereotypes about Black Candidates Applied? An Experimental Test

Abstract

Past research shows that candidates' racial identities influence the assumptions that voters draw about how they will behave in office. In a national survey experiment examining televised candidate advertisements, we find evidence that stereotypes differ both in their potency and how vulnerable they are to disconfirmation. Consistent with previous work, black candidates are broadly assumed to be more liberal than white candidates, although the effect is notably small in magnitude. Yet when it comes to more specific stereotypes—how black candidates will behave on individual issues—effects are not only much larger, but also more contingent on what information is available. We find that by providing a small bit of ideological information, black candidates can overcome the assumption that they will enact liberal policies as concerns taxation and non-racialized aspects of social welfare policy. But it is much more difficult for them to overturn the assumption that they will prioritize aid to minorities while in office.

Biases at the Ballot Box: How Multiple Forms of Voter Discrimination Impede the Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups

“…In the context of actual candidate recruitment by Britain's largest parties, it is of course women (through the Labour party's all-women shortlists) and/or minorities (through the candidate A-list used by the Conservative party) who benefit from these forms of affirmative action (Dommett 2015). Further, voters might use ethnicity as a cue to make faulty inferences about candidates' backgrounds, as they do about policy positions (Karl et al 2016). Minority candidates may suffer electoral discrimination because of assumed affirmative action, even if they did not personally benefit from it.…”

“…As noted above, white voters often fear minority leaders will prioritize minority interests at their expense (Fulton and Gershon 2018). This perception of minority candidates is particularly difficult to dispel, even with contrary information about candidate ideology (Karl et al 2016). If minority candidates promise to promote minority groups' interests, white voters may assess a conditional ethnic penalty above and beyond what a white candidate would face for taking an unpopular policy position.…”

Descriptive Representation in an Era of Polarization

“…Some constituents might believe that their interests are better represented by MCs of certain identity groups because they perceive those groups to have substantive preferences that match their own (Mansbridge 1999;Sigelman et al 1995). On average, women and POC are not only stereotyped as more liberal than male and white politicians, but they also do generally hold more liberal views (Sanbonmatsu and Dolan 2009;Karl and Ryan 2016). If the Democratic party is becoming more liberal, POC and women MCs could become more attractive to the general Democratic constituency, not only voters who share their identities.…”

From hierarchy to rivalry: Asian candidate evaluation in changing racial contexts

“…When partisanship information is provided, Whites are likely to support a candidate with their same partisan identity rather than basing the choice on the candidate's race (McDermott, ). Ascriptive conditions such as race and gender are likely meaningful in low‐information elections, and yet the importance of group attitudes is likely to disappear in the presence of the party cue (Kam, ; Karl & Ryan, ). Furthermore, for minority candidates, partisanship may neutralize negative stereotypes because a partisan label means that one of the established parties considered them qualified to be nominated and endorsed.…”