Conventional Participation• Voting• Contact officials• Attend meetings• Attend political rallies• Contributing to a campaign• Volunteering in a campaign• Running for office• Military service• Legal action: Brown v. Board of Education of

Topeka, Kansas inspired activists to try and change the South

Who Participates?Important factors• Income• Education• Race and ethnicity• Age• Gender (less so)

Voting Behavior:

Long term factors:– Party loyalty, still the best predictor– Class, race, regional loyalties

Short term factors– Candidate appeal (Image)– Issues

How is Race Important in Voting?

- Can minorities get elected?- Minority turnout- White support

- Can minorities extract policy benefits from a political party?- Voting block- Vote on racial issues- Redistictring

“Issue Agendas and Latino Partisan Identification”

by Nicholson and Segura

Latino Voting Block? Republican or Democrat

• Latino population is generally socially conservative

• Latinos offered the strongest support for CA prop 22 in 2000 banning gay marriage

• Latinos are moving into the middle class and there is a general association between income and partisanship

• Cubans are already heavily Republican• 35% of Latino voted for Bush in 2000 in

Texas. A big jump from 21% in 1996

Democrats?

• Latinos especially in CA have moved closer to the Democratic

• Democrats are perceived as having stances on racial issues, economic opportunity, education, crime that are closer to their preferences and interests.

• Latino National Political Survey found that 81% of Latinos in CA were Democrat

• only 18.9% of Latinos nationally self-identified as Republicans

Statistical Analysis Probit/Logit Regression• dependent variable: Party best able to handle

an issue (Democrat or GOP)• independent variables

– issue variables– economy, jobs, education, crime, drugs, social

security, immigration, race, affirmative action• control variables

– Party, Registered, Union member, Ethnic Intensity, Gender, Married, Religiosity, Income

Findings• On every issue represented here, except

education and jobs, California Latinos are more likely to identify Democrats as better able to address the problem.

• Texas: drug issue is seen to be better handled by GOP

• Religiosity had no effect. • Income was positively association with support

for Democrats• Implication? GOP will have a hard time

converting Latinos because religion and income (traditionally associated with GOP) do not seem to be driving forces in partisanship of Latinos.

The Racial Composition of Social Networks and African American

Commitment to the Democratic Party

by Johnson and Gordon

• Hypothesis: black commitment to Democratic party is partially due to racial segregation.

• 2000 ANES, 89% black identify as Democrats; non-Hispanic whites only 41%

• issue-based explanation: economic and social homogeneity of blacks.

• 26% of blacks consider themselves conservative

Will socioeconomic heterogeneity lead to a shift to republican party?

•Black middle class is more economically vulnerable than its white counterparts

•Racial solidarity: Race determines the nature of black lives

•intergroup contact: racial composition of workplace and church are very important. more diverse setting increases likely hood of being independent or GOP

Terkildsen and Damore• Research Question?• How does the media treat race in a

political campaign?• Do they minimize it or do they focus on it?

Questions/hypotheses:

•media will highlight candidate's race, party, & district if black

•bi-racial elections, media will highlight black candidate's race

•bi-racial elections, media will highlight the race of voters

•bi-racial elections, media will downplay candidate's messages of race

•competitive elections will focus on race of the black candidate even further

•black reporters less likely to use racial cues.

Methods

Content analysis of biggest two papers in 9 randomly selected states

Examines 13 biracial contests; 28 all white elections; 7 all black elections

Statistical technique: ANOVA MANOVA

FINDINGS

All hypotheses were supported except last, black reporters were more likely to mention race and black reporters were more likely to cover biracial elections.

Tali Mendelberg

• Research Question?• Did the Willie Horton ad (and media

campaign) influence voters?• Did it prime voters racial biases?• Or did it simply prime voters’ concerns

regarding crime?

The Willie Horton Ad

• Racial overtones or overtly racial?• Bush denied any affiliation with group

funding ad (Lee Atwater later admitted approving the ad).

• News media labeled it a negative partisan ad. Only after the campaign was over did the ad get the reputation of ‘playing the race card’

Race in Political Campaigns

• Voters no longer believe in biological racism

• No longer racist, but still prejudice• Ad could prime racial stereotypes and

influence attitudes regarding race and racial policies

Methodology

• Experiment• 77 white students at Uof M• Median age was 18• Some shown the ad, control group was not• OLS regression

Findings

• Students shown the Horton ad were more likely to have negative views on race and racial policies

• Students shown the Horton ad did not have different views on crime

Summary

• Racial candidates not the only group to play the “race card”

• White candidates may bring it up in campaign ads

• Media focuses on it (except when a black candidate talks about race)

• Las Vegas Presidential Primary Debate on Race, no one wanted to talk about race.