Collective Identification, Linked Fate, and Trump Support Among Descendants of Latino, Black, and Asian Immigrants

• In Event: Measuring Politics

Abstract

Why did a sizable share of U.S.-born descendants of non-European immigrants support Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy in the 2016 election? Given Trump’s openly xenophobic and racist rhetoric—and his further gains among non-white voters in 2024—this question has attracted considerable social science attention, though available answers remain at best partial. To contribute to the understanding of this persistent puzzle, we examine immigrants’ differential identity alignments with their ethnic communities and the nation as a whole. We rely on an original pre-election survey fielded on November 3-8, 2016 by YouGov, which included oversamples of second- and third-generation respondents with ancestral origins in China, India, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica (N = 2,347), supplemented by a European-origin comparison sample (N = 527). Models that control for a wide range of demographic variables reveal the centrality of ancestral identification and structural conceptions of racialized identity as primary factors inhibiting Trump support. Conversely, radical-right political preferences among immigrant descendants from multiple racial backgrounds are driven by identity alignment away from ancestral and immigrant communities and toward a broader national collectivity that is defined in homogeneous and exclusionary terms. We conclude that collective identification processes should therefore be placed alongside demographic and issue-based factors in accounts of minority support for exclusionary right-wing politics.

Authors

• Junliang Xu, New York University

• Bart Bonikowski, New York University

• Yuval Feinstein, University of Haifa