Powerpoint Barack Obama and The Politics Of Racial Resentment

Racial Eras in Presidential Elections

  • Civil War/Reconstruction (1860-1876)
  • Jim Crow (1880-1944)
  • Civil Rights (1948-1968)
  • Pre-Obama Modern (1972-2004)
  • Obama/Trump (2008-2020)

Congressional Voting on Race

  • Democrats and Republicans: Mean Racial Liberalism from 1945-1980. Democrats were consistently more racially liberal than Republicans.

Racial Issues and Partisanship

  • Attitude Means: Racial Liberalism of Democratic and Republican Party identifiers from 1945-1980. Democrats were consistently more racially liberal than Republicans.

The Politics of Racial Resentment

  • Why Persisting Racial Inequalities?
    • Racial Resentment (Kinder and Sanders 1996)
      • It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.
      • Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class.

Distribution of White Racial Resentment

  • Racial Resentment Percentage: Least to Most, measured using the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, October 2008.

The Electoral Temptations of Race in the Pre-Obama Modern Era

  • Democrats → Racial Silence
  • Republicans → Racial Code
  • Willie Horton and the 1988 Election

The Obama Era

  • Post-Racial or Most-Racial?
  • McCain Eschews Republican Temptation
  • Obama Embraces Democratic Temptation
  • Yet public sees increasing differences between parties on race and racial attitudes rise in importance…

Perceived Differences between the Presidential Candidates Support for Government Assistance to African-Americans (1972-2012)

  • Results subtract perceived Republican candidate support (1=Least Supportive; 7=Most Supportive) from perceived Democratic candidate support.

White Americans' Vote Intentions for President, as a Function of Racial and Ethnocentric Attitudes (1988-2012)

  • Probabilities were based on logistic regression coefficients. Predicted probabilities were calculated by setting party identification and ideological self-placement to the mean white respondent.

White Americans' Vote Intentions for President, as a Function of Racial and Ethnocentric Attitudes in 2008 and 2012

  • Probabilities were based on logistic regression coefficients. Predicted probabilities were calculated by setting party identification and ideological self-placement to the mean white respondent.
  • Racial Resentment (Measured in March 2008 CCAP Panel Wave)
  • Black-White Negative Stereotypes (Measured in September 2008 CCAP Panel Wave)
  • Impression of Muslims (Measured in October 2008 CCAP Panel Wave)

Market-Level Racist Google Searches and Changes in Presidential Vote

  • (a) Obama - Kerry
    • R² = 0.24
  • (b) Obama2012 - Obama2008
    • R^2 = 0.00
  • The x-axis in both panels is a media market's Racially Charged Search Rate, as defined in Equation 1, obtained by the algorithm described in Appendix B.
  • The y-axis in Panel (a) is Kerry's 2004 percentage points of the two-party vote subtracted from Obama's 2008 percentage points of the two-party vote.
  • The y-axis in Panel (b) is Obama's 2008 percentage points of the two-party vote subtracted from Obama's 2012 percentage points of the two-party vote.

Obama Activated Islamophobic Opposition, Too

  • Percentage Less Likely to Vote for Obama because of his Race/Religion in 2012
    • Full Sample
      • His Race: 13%
      • His Religion: 24%
    • Romney Voter
      • His Race: 8%
      • His Religion: 51%
    • Think Obama's Muslim
      • His Race: 11%
      • His Religion: 60%

Spillover of Racialization From Obama to Political Beliefs

  • Public Policy Preferences
  • People
  • Partisan Attachments
  • Congressional Vote Choice
  • Economic Evaluations
  • Portuguese Water Dogs

Islamophobia Also Spills Over into Partisan Attitudes Under Obama

  • Attitudes about Muslims were a significantly stronger independent predictor of voter preferences for congress in 2010-2014 elections than they were in 2004-2008.
  • Attitudes about Muslims were a significantly stronger independent predictor of mass partisanship during Obama's presidency than they were beforehand.
  • Experimentally connecting Obama to Democratic congressional candidates significantly increased the relationship between anti-Muslim sentiments and Americans' preferences for Republican congressional candidates.

Reactions to Racial Incidents

  • Breakdown of Republican vs. Democrat agreement/disagreement with various racial incidents
    • Examples provided: Disapprove of Goetz Shooting (1985), Disagree with Rodney King Verdict (1992), Agree with O.J. Verdict (1995), etc.

What are the Electoral Temptations of Race in the Age of Trump?

  • Graph showing the percent of presidential votes cast by non-whites for Democratic vs. Republican candidates from 1988-2012. The percentage of votes cast by non-whites is higher for democratic candidates than republican candidates.