Historical Lynching and the 2016 Presidential Election

• In Event: 2152 - White Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia

Abstract

As a candidate in the 2016 Presidential election, Donald J. Trump invoked racially charged rhetoric to galvanize supporters of the Tea Party movement and working class whites who felt left behind in the “new economy.” In this paper, we ask whether the enduring legacies of racist violence are systematically linked to Trump’s ability to attract electoral support. Our analyses combine county-level data on election results from the 2016 United States Presidential Election with historical counts of county-level episodes of racial violence. We assess whether the percentage of votes cast for Donald J. Trump was Southern counties is predicted by the number of historic incidents where blacks were lynched by whites. Our preliminary results suggest that counties with stronger legacies of lynching also provided stronger support for Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency.

Authors

• Amy Kate Bailey, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Rebecca Abbott