Pandering Politics: Positive Racial Appeals in Political Campaigns

• In Event: Political Appeals, (Mis)Information, and Racial Politics

Abstract

Appealing to group identities like race, gender, age and class has been a foundational political strategy throughout American history. Racial appeals, specifically, have held much sway over public opinion and voting behavior. These appeals have tended to take two forms: implicit and explicit. Explicit racial appeals are those that overtly reference race. Positive explicit appeals may take the form of catering to a group (e.g., “Latinos for Trump!”) and negative explicit appeals take the form of racial stereotyping with the purpose of mobilizing racial animus.

Though we know that positive racial appeals have increased, it is still unclear whether and when they are considered credible to the target group. For example, during the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden infamously said that Black voters “ain’t Black” if they vote for Trump. In a sense, this was a “positive” appeal to Black voters, in that he was hoping to reach out to this demographic to gain their support (of course, there are normatively negative connotations about his statement). However, his attempt at aligning himself with the Black community was not received well — as it was seen as pandering rather than coalition building.

In this paper, we seek to better understand the conditions under which positive explicit racial appeals are successful in garnering support — and how this may vary based on the identity of the voter, with a focus on Black voters. We hypothesize that when white politicians attempt to cater to the Black community, their positive explicit appeal will not be successful unless they align themselves with a credible source (e.g, a black political, social, or religious elite). Without alignment to a credible source, Black voters will likely perceive the positive, explicit appeal as disingenuous pandering rather than genuine commitment. Thus, we expect that endorsements from a Black elite will be more successful in garnering support than positive explicit appeals — but that the combination of a positive explicit appeal and an endorsement may lead to the greatest gains in support.

Further, we believe that these effects may be moderated by age and religion. There is a possibility that a positive appeal or both an appeal and an endorsement from a black elite will have a weaker effect on 18 to 40-year-olds than it will for older respondents, who tend to be more traditional Democrats. While younger Black Americans are becoming more progressive on issues that issues that directly impact them (e.g., student loan debt, climate change, social issues) that seem to be of less of a concern to older adults and elites. Similarly, younger Black Americans are moving away from religion, including Christianity, because of its conservative position on issues like sex before marriage, abortion, LGBTQ+, etc. Thus, an endorsement from a traditional religious elite could have a dampening effect on younger Black Americans, while it would still boost support for older Black respondents.

We evaluate these questions using an original survey experiment that will ask respondents to evaluate a candidate supposedly running for office. The information that respondents receive about the candidate will vary. All will see that he is a white man, but one treatment group will receive a positive explicit appeal, another will receive an endorsement from a Black leader, and a third group will receive both a positive explicit appeal and an endorsement. Respondents will then report their willingness to vote for the candidate. We expect that the effect of the treatment on the dependent variable will be moderated by the race of the respondent. Black respondents will be most likely to vote for the candidate when he is making a positive explicit appeal in conjunction with receiving an endorsement from a Black elite. White respondents may see the endorsement and/or positive explicit appeal as counter to their interests, and thus decrease their support for the politician. Finally, we expect than the relationship among Black respondents may be moderated by age and religiosity.

This work is crucial to understanding how politicians can and do appeal to voters by tapping into identities like race, thus increasing our understanding of political strategy and shedding light on the role that race plays in fundamentally structuring campaigns. It will help us better understand whether and when positive, explicit racial appeals can work to increase political support.

Authors

• Leah Christiani, University of Tennessee

• Jeremiah Wahid Muhammad, University of Tennessee, Knoxville