The Differential Effects of Economic Conditions and Racial Attitudes in the Election of Donald Trump
Open accessAbstract
Debates over the extent to which racial attitudes and economic distress explain voting behavior in the 2016 election have tended to be limited in scope, focusing on the extent to which each factor explains white voters’ two-party vote choice. This limited scope obscures important ways in which these factors could have been related to voting behavior among other racial sub-groups of the electorate, as well as participation in the two-party contest in the first place. Using the vote-validated 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, merged with economic data at the ZIP code and county levels, we find that racial attitudes strongly explain two-party vote choice among white voters – in line with a growing body of literature. However, we also find that local economic distress was strongly associated with non-voting among people of color, complicating direct comparisons between racial and economic explanations of the 2016 election and cautioning against generalizations regarding causal emphasis.
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There is growing evidence that racial prejudice and resentment is one of the critical determinants of the appeal of Donald Trump to a substantial proportion of American adults.
“There is growing evidence that racial prejudice and resentment is one of the critical determinants of the appeal of Donald Trump to a substantial proportion of American adults [128,129,130].”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [128]
One study found that after adjusting for a broad range of other factors, whites who strongly agreed with the statement that they were afraid of people of other races were ten times more likely to have voted for Trump compared to those who disagreed.
“One study found that after adjusting for a broad range of other factors, whites who strongly agreed with the statement that they were afraid of people of other races were ten times more likely to have voted for Trump compared to those who disagreed [128].”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [128]
Cites
Schaffner, B. F., Macwilliams, M., & Nteta, T. (2018) · Political Science Quarterly · doi:10.1002/polq.12737 · Cited by 541 · see citing works
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Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action
Williams, D. R., & Cooper, L. A. (2019) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph16040606 · Cited by 415 · see citing works
- Authors
- Green, J., & McElwee, S.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- ORCID
- Green, Jon
- Venue
- Perspectives on Politics
- Publisher
- Center for Open Science
- Published
- 2018-09-06
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 02
- Pages
- 358-379
- ISSN
- 1537-5927 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2898737590
- Cited by
- 58
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 8
- FWCI
- 38.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Perspectives on Politics (publishedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- SocArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- SocArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research
- Keywords
- 2016 US presidential election, Donald Trump, racial attitudes, economic hardship, voting behavior, non-voting, people of color, white voters, voter turnout, local economic conditions
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