Hope, Tropes, and Dopes: Hispanic and White Racial Animus in the 2008 Election

Abstract

One of the central questions surrounding the 2008 presidential election is the role of race in shaping electoral choice among non‐Hispanic whites, and whether race played an equivalent role among Hispanics, whose willingness to vote for an African American candidate was raised as an uncertainty during the primary campaign. The authors argue that, beyond the usual association of racial sentiment with party preference, the effect of Obama's race on the 2008 election is significant, but substantially smaller among Latinos than among non‐Hispanic whites. Although Latino voters often express racial sentiments that are indistinguishable from whites, there was a significant disconnect between those racial sentiments and Latinos' vote choice and evaluations of candidate Obama. The authors explore the explanatory power of explicit, indirect, and implicit measures of racial sentiment and find that an indirect measurement—the Racial Resentment Index—retains the greatest predictive validity, notwithstanding its conceptual challenges.

The Political Consequences of Latino Prejudice against Blacks

“…See Ditonto, Lau, and Sears (2013) for results similar to ours. Segura and Valenzuela's (2010) analysis of vote choice in 2008 yields results that differ somewhat from ours, as they do not use a measure of indifference to black suffering-this measure, as we show, has comparable associations with vote choice across Latinos and non-Hispanic whites. 9.…”

“…While these studies have made valuable contributions, in some cases the primary goal of these studies is to consider white prejudice against blacks; accordingly, Latino attitudes toward blacks are reported as a secondary result and are not investigated as thoroughly as white attitudes. Among the studies that are more centered on the impact of prejudice among Latinos, the scope is mostly limited to the analysis of a single election (Segura and Valenzuela 2010;Tesler and Sears 2010).…”

“…Largely due to an absence of data that provide both high-quality national samples of Latinos and measures of prejudice against blacks, only recently have a handful of studies begun to test empirically the political consequences of prejudice among Latinos (Hutchings 2009;Segura and Valenzuela 2010;Tesler and Sears 2010;Ditonto, Lau, and Sears 2013). While these studies have made valuable contributions, in some cases the primary goal of these studies is to consider white prejudice against blacks; accordingly, Latino attitudes toward blacks are reported as a secondary result and are not investigated as thoroughly as white attitudes.…”

AMPing Racial Attitudes: Comparing the Power of Explicit and Implicit Racism Measures in 2008

“…Others have found significant evidence of hostile attitudes toward Blacks and policies targeting Blacks among Latinos (e.g., Gay, ; Kaufmann, ; Lopez & Pantoja, ; McClain, ) and that Latinos see themselves as having more in common with Whites than Blacks (McClain et al., ). On the other hand, Latinos and African Americans have been shown to have similar policy beliefs and ideological positions (Hero & Preuhs, ; Kaufmann, ), and work by both Barreto, Segura, and Valenzuela () and Segura and Valenzuela () find that racial sentiments played little role in determining Latinos' attitudes toward Obama and vote choice in 2008.…”

The Fate of Obamacare: Racial Resentment, Ethnocentrism and Attitudes about Healthcare Reform

“…Segura and Valenzuela (2010) showed that Racial Resentment had a significant, negative effect on Obama's candidacy. Similarly, Pasek et al (2009) concluded that anti-African American racism reduced Obama's vote share (see also Redlawsk et al 2010).…”