Waking a Sleeping Giant: How Anti-Immigrant Policies & Rhetoric Mobilize Latinos

• In Event: The Rhetoric of Race

Abstract

How did the 2018 midterm campaign affect Latino registered voter turnout and political engagement? Past research shows that anti-immigrant policy and rhetoric have the power to mobilize greater engagement among Latinos, but leaves open questions about why and whether these effects exist today on a national scale. In this paper, we use an original panel survey of Latinos and whites interviewed in September 2018 and again after Election Day to investigate how exposure to anti-immigrant policy enforcement and anti-immigrant campaign rhetoric affect electoral and non-electoral political participation. We theorize Latinos will be both angered by and afraid of the current direction of the country and the way ICE is currently enforcing immigration laws around the country, but only Latinos who are angered will be mobilized to participate at higher rates. Using both self-reported and behavioral measures, we find evidence that anger mobilizes where fear and sadness likely demobilize. We also leverage the panel structure to measure emotional change over the pre-to-post election period. Our data are national in scope and include approximately 2,144 Latinos and 2,465 non-Hispanic whites who completed both waves. Other measured outcomes of interest include validated turnout and self-reported participation in other forms of politics. We will also measure self-reported campaign contact and exposure to anti-immigrant policy enforcement to test the correspondence between aggregate state-level measures and subjects’ perceptions. Findings will speak to the backlash potential and mechanisms driving any participatory effects of anti-immigrant policy enforcement and rhetoric, an especially salient dimension of electoral politics in the Trump era.

Authors

• Nicholas A. Valentino, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Ali A. Valenzuela, Princeton University

• Omar Wasow, Princeton University

• Matt A. Barreto, University of California, Los Angeles