Download This PaperRace Politics Research and the American Presidency: Thinking About White Group Identities and Vote Choice in the Trump Era and Beyond
30 Pages Posted: 21 May 2020
Date Written: January 25, 2020
Abstract
We look at the past decade’s advances in our understanding of the relationship between white racial identities and Presidential voting preferences. Following a short review of developments in the literature during the Obama years, we critically evaluate four theories explaining whites’ support for Trump: racial resentment, xenophobia, sexism, and white identity. Using data from three ANES studies, we test the relative explanatory power of all four approaches in predicting a vote for Trump during the 2016 Republican primary, the 2016 election, and intent to vote for him in 2020. The results suggest that xenophobia had the most consistent and strongest effect across all models, followed by racial resentment and sexism. White identity appears to have influenced voting for Trump in the primary and it could also have an impact if Biden is the 2020 Democratic nominee, but its effect in the 2016 general election general election does not appear to have been consistent with theoretical expectations. Finally, we use these results to think critically about the state of the field and propose new questions and challenges for research.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation