Putting US First: How Outgroup Hostilities and Defense of the Status Quo Motivate White Evangelical Affect Toward Candidates in U.S. Elections 2004 to 2016

• Date: 01 September 2021
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Wayde Z.C. Marsh
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211021852
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211021852

American Politics Research

2021, Vol. 49(5) 534 –547

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211021852

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Article

Introduction

In the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. election, journalists and

scholars attempted to explain why so many white evangeli-

cal leaders endorsed Donald Trump and why so many polls

showed record high white evangelical1 support for the less

than conventional Republican candidate. At the root of this

puzzle was a question about how a social group defined by

clear culturally traditional policy goals, high moral expecta-

tions of elected officials, and clear religious boundaries

could support a thrice-married casino mogul, who bragged

about groping women without their consent and who made

several religious gaffes in the lead up to the election. Many

explained that evangelicals were simply “holding their

noses” and, when faced with two “immoral” candidates,

were choosing the candidate who would advance their policy

goals (Johnson, 2016). While such an explanation satisfied

some, it fails to account for evangelicals’ consistently high

feelings of warmth for Trump before the election and con-

tinuing into his term as president. If evangelicals did not like

Trump, but merely wanted him to nominate conservative

Supreme Court justices and fight for anti-LGBTQ+ policies,

why would they express such consistently positive feelings

toward Trump? The reason for this positive affect is their

shared outgroup hostilities against groups threatening the

status quo.

Since Ronald Reagan, white evangelicals have voted for

Republican candidates, and yet their enthusiastic embrace of

Trump, despite the fact that his personality, values, policy

positions, and faith did not align or make any serious effort

to align with evangelicals, remains a central question for

scholars of American political behavior. The puzzle of white

evangelical support for Trump, therefore, invites the ques-

tion of how members of a politically-important social group

construct feelings toward candidates when they lack either

shared policy goals or shared social identity with the candi-

date. More specifically, recent literature in political science

demonstrates that affective orientations are a key determi-

nant of polarization in the electorate and among elected offi-

cials (Amira et al., 2021; Huddy et al., 2015; Iyengar et al.,

2012; Iyengar & Westwood, 2014; Layman et al., 2006;

Martherus et al., 2021; Mason, 2016, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c;

Mason & Wronski, 2018; Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018). The

shift in focus on partisan affect has helped uncover the com-

plex dynamics of affective assessments across partisan lines,

1021852APRXXX10.1177/1532673X211021852American Politics ResearchMarsh

research-article2021

1University of Notre Dame, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Wayde Z.C. Marsh, University of Notre Dame, 2060 Jenkins Nanovic

Halls, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

Email: wmarsh1@nd.edu

Putting US First: How Outgroup

Hostilities and Defense of the

Status Quo Motivate White

Evangelical Affect Toward Candidates

in U.S. Elections 2004 to 2016

Wayde Z. C. Marsh1

Abstract

How do voters construct feelings toward inparty elites? More specifically, how do they do so when they lack a shared policy

agenda or shared salient social identity with candidates beyond partisan identification? In this paper, I investigate this puzzle

by developing a theory of Putting America First to explain white evangelical affect toward Republican presidential candidates

from 2004 to 2016. Using ANES surveys from 2004 to 2016, I test the effectiveness of this model of candidate affect. I find

that shared outgroup hostility, what I call Putting Us First, motivates positive affect for presidential candidates among white

evangelicals, regardless of shared policy objectives and descriptive representation. Overtime, white evangelicals’ affect is

driven by outgroup hostilities rather than Culture Wars values. Overall, this informs our understanding of voter affect

toward candidates and the increasingly important role of social outgroup hostility in defense of the status quo.

Keywords

electoral behavior, candidate affect, partisanship, politics and religion, political psychology