How Race and Gender Shape Evaluations of Vice President Kamala Harris

• In Event: Race, Gender, and Candidate Evaluation

Abstract

Prior studies show that support for Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections was increasingly linked to negative racial attitudes, sexism, and hostility towards immigrants. Research also demonstrates that Black women in politics are doubly disadvantaged by their race and gender. Recent scholars of racial attitudes contend that the racial resentment index may not be capturing how white Americans are thinking about race and these scholars have called for new measures of racial attitudes that tap into fear, an acknowledgment of institutional racism, and empathy. Using data from the 2020 CMPS Survey, we investigate the degree to which evaluations of America’s first Black and woman Vice president are linked to racial attitudes and sexism. Relying on Kinder and Sears (1981) ­­­– racial resentment index and Desante and Watts Smith (2020)–FIRE model, we examine the extent to which the FIRE model is just as predictive of evaluations of Kamala Harris as the racial resentment index. Our findings suggest that both Kamala Harris’ race and gender influence how she is evaluated across racial groups. Our findings also indicate that aspects of Desante and Watts Smith’s measure of racial attitudes are just as predictive of evaluations of Kamala Harris as the racial resentment index.

Authors

• Emmitt Y. Riley, Depauw University

• Clarissa Peterson, DePauw University