Black Votes Count, But Do They Matter? Symbolic Empowerment and the Jackson-Obama Mobilizing Effect on Gender and Age Cohorts

AuthorSarah Cote Hampson,Evelyn M. Simien
DOI10.1177/1532673X19898665
Published date01 November 2020
Date01 November 2020
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19898665
American Politics Research
2020, Vol. 48(6) 725 –737
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19898665
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Article
In 1988, Ronald Walters published his classic, Black
Presidential Politics in America: A Strategic Approach. In it,
he assessed whether Jesse Jackson’s entry into the presiden-
tial selection process resulted in independent leverage—that
is, the “balance of power” whereby Black votes could yield
the margin of victory between the two major parties gener-
ally and determine the eventual Democratic nominee specifi-
cally. He argued that Black votes were crucial in determining
the outcome of the presidential selection process, which also
resulted in dependent leverage—that is, behind-the-scenes
bargaining whereby the Black candidate imposed certain
policy demands on the party organization. Building upon this
seminal work (Walters, 1988) and that of others who have
pursued a similar line of research (Simien, 2015), we argue
that the historic entry of Black candidates changes the nature
of American presidential elections. Simien (2015), for exam-
ple, stressed the importance of independent leverage as it
relates to and reinforces symbolic empowerment whereby a
historic first—in this case, a Black office seeker—facilitates
the process by which Black voters support their candidacy on
account of a shared group identity and actively participate in
electoral politics. It is not simply a question of whether they
as candidates promote political behavior, but the larger
question is whether their office seeking as historic firsts
stimulates active participation in the presidential selection
process. The idea that the mere presence of a “historic first”
who mirrors a marginalized group pictorially signals greater
access to electoral opportunities and, at the same time, moti-
vates political behavior is described in terms of contextual
effects that are symbolically empowering. That said, we pick
up where past researchers have left off.
Given the Democratic presidential campaigns of Senators
Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, we see the potential for
symbolic empowerment to manifest itself once again during
the 2020 nominating contest, making it all the more relevant
today. Using data from the 1984–1988 National Black
Election Studies (NBES), and the 2008 and 2012 American
National Election Studies (ANES), the goal is to provide a
comprehensive study of African American political behavior
with support for Jackson and Obama serving as explanatory
variables alongside other sources of variation—gender and
age cohorts. Herein lies our innovation, as we advance a
theory of symbolic empowerment but by way of extension
898665APRXXX10.1177/1532673X19898665American Politics ResearchSimien and Hampson
research-article2020
1University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
2University of Washington Tacoma, USA
Corresponding Author:
Evelyn M. Simien, University of Connecticut, 365 Fairfield Way, Unit
1024, Storrs, CT 06269-0001, USA.
Email: evelyn.simien@uconn.edu
Black Votes Count, But Do They Matter?
Symbolic Empowerment and the
Jackson-Obama Mobilizing Effect on
Gender and Age Cohorts
Evelyn M. Simien1 and Sarah Cote Hampson2
Abstract
Using data from the 1984–1988 National Black Election Studies as well as the 2008 and 2012 American National Election
Studies, we provide a comprehensive study of African American political behavior with support for Barack Obama and Jesse
Jackson serving as explanatory variables alongside other sources of variation—gender and age cohorts. Results show that
African American voters who preferred Jackson and Obama in the 1984 and 2008 Democratic nominating contests were
more likely to proselytize, attend a campaign rally or political meeting, donate money, and wear a campaign button. While
opposition to Ronald Reagan and George Bush, church membership, involvement in Black political organizations were also
linked to behavior, racial group identification (linked fate) had a less consistent effect. Both Obama’s candidacy like that of
Jackson’s had an empowering effect on African American women—particularly, those of the civil rights generation—as was
the case for Obama supporters of a younger cohort.
Keywords
symbolic empowerment, Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, mobilization, age, gender, American presidential elections, political
behavior

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