Before Trump: White Support for Republican Presidential Candidates in the 21c

• In Event: Voter Attitudes and Participation

Abstract

The election of Donald Trump prompted a range of scholarship investigating the group-level drivers of support for Trump among white Americans. Specifically, studies have shown that racial resentment, sexism, and xenophobia played a key role in shaping white Americans’ enthusiasm for Donald Trump. However, the literature on presidential candidate support has yet to investigate whether such outgroup factors played a role in white Americans’ voting behavior in previous election cycles, or if Trump is a curious exception. In short, did outgroup considerations influence white support for Republican presidential candidates in earlier elections?

Focusing our attention to white voters, we leverage ANES data from 2000 through 2016 in order to understand the drivers of whites’ support for Republican candidates. Fundamentally at stake in this research agenda is understanding whether Trump’s victory is indicative of a shift in the white American psyche or a scholarly lack of attention to outgroup predispositions in America throughout the 21st century.

Our paper reconciles recent findings on group-level drivers of support for Trump with group-level drivers of support for previous Republican presidential candidates, while controlling for individual-level factors. We compare the strength of the relationship between racial resentment, xenophobia, and sexism across the past five presidential elections using the American National Election Study.

Authors

• Amanda Sahar d'Urso, Northwestern University

• Alexandra Filindra, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Beyza Ekin Buyuker, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Noah J. Kaplan, University of Illinois, Chicago