The Effect of Social Networks on Black Women’s Partisanship & Candidate Support

• In Event: Toward Pluralism in REP/Elections Research: Black Women in Electoral Politics

Abstract

In the past few elections, Black women have disproportionately been a driving force of Black electoral power. Though existing literature tells us that Black women are more likely to identify as Democrats than their male counterparts, it provides little evidence about the mechanism that inform this difference. Scholarship tells us that racial identity is more salient for Black women due to their doubly bound position which, we argue in turn will, result in social networks that are comprised of more co-racial peers than Black men. In this paper, we find using two original national surveys of 5,700 Black Americans that because Black women’s circle of close friends is more co-racially homogenous than Black men they are more likely to identify as Democrats and support Joe Biden. If as scholars have posited, Black women are the backbone of the Democratic party, then identifying the mechanisms that underlie this behavior is integral to our understanding of racial and partisan politics.

Authors

• Chryl Laird, University of Maryland

• Julian Wamble, George Washington University