Multinomial Logit and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (2012): Views on How to Balance the Budget in the U.S.

Experimental research has long indicated that minority candidates are perceived as being more liberal than Whites. These expectations may hinder the electoral prospects of minority candidates campaigning for office who need the support of independents to win. Drawing upon a unique dataset of 933 informants (party delegates) and survey data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we investigate the accuracy and implications of these race-based stereotypes for voting in the U.S. House of Representatives. Our analysis indicates that ethnic and racial minority candidates for Congress are typically viewed by voters as being far more liberal than objective indicators would suggest. Moreover, we find that these misperceptions of ideological extremity may harm minorities’ electoral chances at the ballot box, limiting their support among White voters, particularly independents. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for candidates campaigning for office.

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Changes in perceptions of media bias

Research & Politics ◽

10.1177/2053168020987441 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 205316802098744

Author(s):

Kirby Goidel ◽

Nicholas T. Davis ◽

Spencer Goidel

Keyword(s):

Attitude Change ◽

Media Bias ◽

Congressional Election ◽

Election Study ◽

Donald Trump ◽

Change Perceptions ◽

Individual Perceptions ◽

2016 Election ◽

The Media

In this paper, we utilize a module from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to explore how individual perceptions of media bias changed over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign. While previous literature has documented the role of partisan affiliation in perceptions of bias, we know considerably less about how these perceptions change during a presidential election. Consistent with existing theories of attitude change, perceptions of bias polarize with strong Democrats moving toward believing the media were biased against Hillary Clinton (and in favor of Donald Trump) and independent-leaning Republicans moving toward believing the media were biased against Donald Trump. At the end of the 2016 election, more individuals believed the media were biased against their side. These effects were moderated by how much attention individuals paid to the campaign.

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The Cooperative Congressional Election Study Data, 2016–2019

10.1017/9781108876940.018 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 169-176

Keyword(s):

Study Data ◽

Congressional Election ◽

Election Study

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Descriptive Representation and Black Political Involvement

Gaining Voice ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190933562.003.0005 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 97-122

Author(s):

Christopher J. Clark ◽

Ray Block

Keyword(s):

African Americans ◽

Study Data ◽

Representative Democracy ◽

The Political ◽

Political Involvement ◽

Congressional Election ◽

Election Study ◽

Political Empowerment ◽

Black Representation ◽

The Us

A healthy representative democracy requires that citizens be politically involved, and it is especially important to consider the political involvement of groups that are marginalized, such as African Americans. Building on the political empowerment hypothesis, the chapter argues that an increased black seat share and black representation ratio should be associated with increased black political involvement. Using 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study data, the chapter describes how in states with an increased black seat share in the legislature blacks are more likely to be highly interested in politics and are more likely to vote. In states with a higher black representation ratio, blacks are more inclined to persuade others to vote. Black representation in the US House does not increase black political involvement, despite being the focus of many scholarly works of political empowerment.

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Fear, Institutionalized Racism, and Empathy: The Underlying Dimensions of Whites’ Racial Attitudes

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s1049096520000414 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 (4) ◽

pp. 639-645 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Christopher D. DeSante ◽

Candis Watts Smith

Keyword(s):

Racial Attitudes ◽

Emotional Reactions ◽

Status Quo ◽

Congressional Election ◽

Election Study ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Institutionalized Racism ◽

The Past ◽

Cognitive Beliefs ◽

The Relationship

ABSTRACTFor nearly 75 years, scholars of American public opinion have sought to measure whites’ attitudes toward blacks: social scientists have invented and revised ways to measure what we could refer to as “racial prejudice.” With each revision, scholars who believe they have captured new forms of racial animus are met with opposition from those who believe that old-fashioned anti-black affect is a thing of the past. We directly answer these claims by collecting a surfeit of attitudinal measures to simultaneously estimate the relationship between cognitive beliefs about the racial status quo and emotional reactions to racism. First, we uncover that two higher-order dimensions undergird whites’ racial attitudes. Second, we validate a four-item version of our new battery using the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study.

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