The Big Tent Effect
| Author | Christopher T. Stout,Jennifer R. Garcia |
| DOI | 10.1177/1532673X14547933 |
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2014
Article
American Politics Research
2015, Vol. 43(2) 205 –231
The Big Tent Effect:
© The Author(s) 2014
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Descriptive Candidates
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14547933
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and Black and Latino
Political Partisanship
Christopher T. Stout1 and Jennifer R. Garcia2
Abstract
In this study, we assess whether Blacks and/or Latinos are more likely to
identify with political parties that nominate a U.S. House candidate who
shares their race/ethnicity using the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election
Study (CCES). Our results indicate that Blacks are more likely to identify with
both the Democratic and Republican Party when they nominate successful
Black candidates for the House of Representatives. To assess the temporal
order of the relationship, we examine the differences in Black Democratic
partisanship before and after Obama’s election to the White House and
changes in Republican partisanship among Blacks in districts before and after
the nomination of a successful Black Republican candidate. In combination,
we find that both political parties can make gains in the Black community
through the nomination of co-racial candidates. While descriptive candidates
consistently influence Black partisanship, we find that Latino partisanship is
not significantly affected by the presence of co-ethnic candidates.
Keywords
Black politics, Latino politics, partisanship, descriptive representation,
Congress
1Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA
2University of California, Irvine, USA
Corresponding Author:
Christopher T. Stout, Southern Illinois University, 1000 Faner Drive, Mailcode 4501,
Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.
Email: cstout@siu.edu
206
American Politics Research 43(2)
The 2012 presidential election demonstrated the growing importance of
minority voters in American political elections. In spite of receiving less than
40% of the White vote, Obama was able to win re-election through building
a coalition of Black, Latino, and Asian American voters. The results of the
2012 election, in some ways, are emblematic of the future of American poli-
tics. By 2050, the United States will be a majority–minority country, and to
succeed, both major political parties will have to attract the support of the
minority electorate.
Faced with this challenge, both parties are exploring different options to
enhance their standing in minority communities. One strategy that is becom-
ing increasingly common among both the Democratic and Republican Parties
is to highlight and promote their party’s racial/ethnic diversity. Traditionally,
this has been done through the strategic appointment of minorities to leader-
ship and cabinet-level positions (Philpot, 2007). Beyond appointing African
Americans and Latinos to strategic posts, both parties are also ramping up
their efforts to recruit minority candidates. For example, former Black U.S.
House Representative J. C. Watts has created a non-profit charged with tar-
geting and promoting potential minority candidates and congressional staff-
ers for the Republican Party.1 Not to be outdone, the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee has also created a Latino Council, which focuses on
increasing the number of Democratic Latino candidates for Congress.2
While both parties are making a concerted effort to diversify their candi-
date pool in hopes of attracting Black and Latino support, the efficacy of this
strategy has not yet been empirically studied. Previous research has exam-
ined the role minority candidates play in increasing turnout, efficacy, and
numerous other political attitudes and behaviors, but less is known about how
the presence of Black and Latino candidates influences political partisanship
(Barreto, 2010; Bobo & Gilliam, 1990; Michelson, 2000; Sanchez & Morin,
2011; Tate, 2003).
In this study, we assess whether Blacks and/or Latinos are more likely to
identify with political parties that nominate a U.S. House candidate who
shares their race/ethnicity and whether this effect is contingent on the success
of the candidate.3 To address this question, we begin by discussing how polit-
ical partisanship is formed and how the presence of underrepresented candi-
dates may shape party identification for minority voters. We then test our
hypothesis using the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study
(CCES). Among other things, the 2010 CCES is useful for our purposes
because it asks respondents to identify the race/ethnicity of the congressional
candidates in their district.
Our findings indicate that Blacks are more likely to identify with the
Democratic Party when they nominate a Black candidate, regardless of the
Stout and Garcia
207
candidate’s performance. Our results also indicate that the nomination of a
successful Black Republican candidate can improve the Party’s standing with
the Black community. In contrast to Blacks, we do not find Latino partisan-
ship to be significantly affected by the presence of co-ethnic House
candidates.
To assess the temporal order of the relationship between the Democratic
and Republican Party’s nomination of Black candidates and transformations
in Black partisanship, we examine the difference in Black Democratic parti-
sanship before and after Obama’s election to the White House. We also
explore differences in Republican partisanship among Black voters in dis-
tricts before and after the nomination of a successful Black Republican can-
didate. In combination, we find support for the claim that both political
parties can make gains in the Black community through the nomination of
co-racial candidates.
Race, Ethnicity, and Partisanship in the United
States
Traditional explanations of party identification assert that individuals inherit
their partisan loyalties from their parents, which stick with them over the
course of their lives and provide a lens through which they understand the
political world (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960). Green,
Palmquist, and Schickler (2002) show that party attachment is so stable that
even when political and economic evaluations change, party identification
does not.
In contrast, others contend that partisan development and change is a
much more dynamic process, making it less stable over the course of one’s
life (Fiorina, 1981; Franklin & Jackson, 1983; Page & Jones, 1979). Allsop
and Weisberg (1988) are even able to show that some individuals change
their partisanship over the course of one election cycle. Previous research has
demonstrated that partisanship is susceptible to change when the policy posi-
tions of individuals’ preferred political party become incongruent with their
own (Carsey & Layman, 2006; Fiorina, 1981; Franklin, 1992), and when
individuals’ residential context and social networks are unsupportive of their
party identification (Lyons, 2011). Most pertinent to our study, other research
demonstrates that short-term changes in partisanship can be tied to the per-
sonalities and evaluations of a party’s candidates, and alterations in percep-
tions of the party’s image (Brody & Rothenberg, 1988; Philpot, 2007;
Rapoport, 1997).
Along these lines, a growing body of work suggests that minority partisan-
ship in the United States is far from settled. Surveys show that Latinos are
208
American Politics Research 43(2)
reluctant to identify with either political party, reporting higher levels of non-
partisanship than Whites and Blacks (see Hajnal & Lee, 2011). While African
Americans have clear behavioral preferences for the Democratic Party, they
are far from homogeneous in their identification with the Party (Frymer,
1999; Hajnal & Lee, 2011). Rather than stemming from policy disagree-
ments, or a growing conservatism and economic diversity, the Democratic
Party’s inattention and lack of effort to pursue Black issues has resulted in a
decline in Black identification with the Party (Bositis, 2010; Hajnal & Lee,
2011; Tate, 1991).
Acknowledging the importance of racial identity and group conscious-
ness, a number of scholars have argued that minority partisanship is reflective
of Blacks’ and Latinos’ perception that the Democratic Party works harder for
their interests than does the Republican Party (Cain, Kiewiet, & Uhlaner,
1991; DeSipio, 1996; Philpot, 2007). Much of the recent literature has reiter-
ated this point by demonstrating that the amount of effort put forth by a politi-
cal party to appeal to Blacks and Latinos is a strong predictor of its partisan
identification (Bositis, 2010; Evans, Franco, Polinard, Wenzel, & Wrinkle,
2012; Frymer, 1999; Hajnal & Lee, 2011). Hajnal and Lee (2011), for exam-
ple, demonstrate that Blacks are much more likely to identify as Democrats
when they feel that the Party works hard to improve the lives of African
Americans. Along the same lines, Evans et al. (2012) find that while Latinos
are largely non-partisan, the belief that either the Democratic or Republican
Party is working for Latino interests increases party identification.
Beyond perceptions of the Democratic Party working for the interest of
Blacks and Latinos, some have argued that the Republican Party’s poor
showing with minority voters is due to perceptions of Republican hostility
toward minority political interests (Cain et al., 1991; King, 2006; Nuño,
2007; Philpot, 2007). Candidates from the Republican Party have at times
aired...
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