Communicating Identity Politics: Women of Color and Political Messaging

• In Event: Intersectional Candidates, Communication, and Representation

Abstract

2020 witnessed candidates with varying identities, backgrounds and experiences win seats in the House of Representatives which makes the 117th Congress the most diverse in the nation’s history. In a year where identity politics played center stage, how did these candidates leverage identity in their appeals? Did they play up their identities, mention them in passing or ignore them all together? What is this variance associated with? Partisanship, opponent, religion, military background, parental/care giving status? We include these less theorized categories of identity in addition to race and gender to better explicate candidates’ messages beyond the intersectional holy trinity of race, class and gender. To be sure, because ethno-racial minorities and women candidates are not viewed as identity free or neutral, we take these politically salient identities as the starting point but expand our analysis to these other germane identities and experiences. We propose a new theory to explain the choice of candidates to bring their racial, ethnic and gender identities to bear in their messages to voters.

Relying on a new typology capturing identity-centered, identity-aware and identity-neutral messaging, we content analyze over 1000 congressional campaign website biography pages to present a mixed methods articulation of our theoretical framework. In these biographies, candidates present carefully crafted narratives to explain who they are, what they’ve done and what they plan to do for voters in their districts. While conventional wisdom suggests that women and minorities will discuss their gender and ethno-racial identities more frequently than White men, we find the choice to play up or de-emphasize identities varies across men, women, racial and ethnic minorities, Republicans and Democrats. Our paper explores the variation in this discussion and the reasons why candidates make these choices. We conclude by outlining the implications of our findings for women and minority candidates running for office in contemporary American politics.

Authors

• Sarah Allen Gershon, Georgia State University

• Nadia E. Brown, Georgetown University