Politics and Public Opinion in the American West

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The aim of this panel is to better understand public opinion and the politics of the American West, a region that is understudied within political science and that includes distinctive political dynamics. Papers on this panel will employ data from the 2020 Western States Survey, a novel and collaborative effort from scholars in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah – a geographic region that includes reliably Democratic, reliably Republican, and battleground states. With a common set of questions asked of respondents in all states, the goal of the Western States Survey is to better understand public opinion and election experiences across these five states. The survey was fielded at the time of the 2020 presidential election to a sample of 3,600 residents of the West, with an oversample of 600 Latino residents.

Though public opinion surveys have occurred within each of the five states, the frequency, quality, and aims of previous efforts vary dramatically. The 2020 Western States Survey offers an opportunity to focus scholarly and public attention on the American West. This is important because opinion in the West can be distinct from other regions of the country. Because the specific political context in each state is unique, we seek to better understand both what residents of the West have in common and what divides them across state boundaries. We are aware of no other recent attempts to systematically understand the similarities and differences in public opinion within this region through a single, coordinated survey effort. The 2020 Western States Survey thus represents a unique opportunity to understand contemporary social and political opinions during a contested presidential election in a region of the country that is both distinctive and growing in population. Papers on the panel will explore geographic identity, beliefs about contesting election outcomes, representation, and environmental policy in the West. Panel discussants will both engage with these themes and explore the Western States Survey as a political science resource more generally.

Sub Unit

• Division 37: Public Opinion

Individual Presentations

• Winner Effects on the Contestation of Electoral Outcomes - Juliet Carlisle, University of Utah; Fabian Guy Neuner, Arizona State University; Mark Daniel Ramirez, Arizona State University; Christopher R. Weber

• Representational Congruence, Constituency Groups, and Environmental Policy - Juliet Carlisle, University of Utah; James M. Curry, University of Utah; Jerry Michael Stott, University of Utah

• Western Identity as a Salient Political Identity - Fabian Guy Neuner, Arizona State University; Christopher F. Karpowitz, Brigham Young University; Jeremy C. Pope, Brigham Young University

Chair

• Christopher F. Karpowitz Brigham Young University

Discussants

• Samara Klar University of Arizona

• Rebecca D. Gill University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Jeremy C. Pope Brigham Young University