Racial Resentment and Targeted Anger at Barack Obama and the Federal Government

Abstract

We use a survey experiment embedded in the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) to tease out the extent to which affective reactions in the country during the 2010 mid-term elections varied across political targets. We specifically examine anger toward President Barack Obama, and toward the Federal Government. We randomized a set of three questions asking CCES respondents 1) whether people they know are more angry at Obama/the federal government than they used to be, 2) whether the respondents themselves were more angry at Obama/the federal government than they used to be, and 3) after thinking about what Obama/the federal government have done during the last two years how angry it makes them feel. Thus, we are able to gauge the perceived anger of others, personal anger, and anger due to the perceived actions of Obama/the federal government. While media accounts suggested the American public was extremely “angry” during the first years of the Obama administration, we find significantly more anger targeted at government than Obama. Our analysis will examine the effects of racial resentment, partisanship, ideology, tea party support, and 2008 presidential vote, as well as the randomized target, on levels of anger. We will report the findings, and discuss their implications in our paper.

Keywords: Barack Obama, Public Opinion, Anger, Federal Government, Survey Experiments