The Racial Turnout Gap in Local Elections: Evidence from Voter Files

• In Event: Is US Local Politics Becoming "Nationalized"?

Abstract

Racial disparities in political participation have been well-documented at the national level. While the details vary between elections, American elections feature a sizable turnout gap between white people and people of color. We know relatively little, however, about the extent to which these political inequalities extend to the local level, and whether the turnout gap varies between localities. This paper assembles a novel data set of voter files from multiple states to analyze, at the individual level, the racial turnout gap in multiple cities. Using voter self-reported race and sophisticated race estimation techniques, we assess (1) how the racial turnout gap at the local level compares to that at the national level (2) whether the racial turnout gap varies between cities (3) how differences in partisan contexts predict the local turnout gap, and (4) how neighborhood-level minority population levels and segregation shape turnout.

Authors

• Katherine Levine Einstein, Boston University

• Maxwell B. Palmer, Boston University