Racial Resentment, Hurricane Sandy, and the Spillover of Racial Attitudes into Evaluations of Government Organizations

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between individuals' racial attitudes, exposure to information cuing them to think about President Obama, and evaluations of the government's response to Hurricane Sandy. Using a split ballot experiment embedded in a large internet panel fielded during the 2012 presidential election, we show that respondents' evaluations of President Obama's response to Hurricane Sandy were based on their racial attitudes. We next examined the possibility for racial attitudes to "spill over" into how people evaluate governmental institutions and organizations associated with President Obama. We found evidence that respondents who were cued to think about President Obama and were impacted by Hurricane Sandy were more likely to base their evaluations of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to the disaster on their racial attitudes.

Inverting the Lens: White Privilege Denial in Evaluations of Politicians and Policy

“…Race is a defining feature of the American party system (Bowler and Segura 2012;Carmines and Stimson 1989;Hutchings and Valentino 2004;Kinder and Sanders 1996;Mendelberg 2001;Parker and Barreto 2013;Philpot 2007). The differences in the racial groups that make up party coalitions and the positions taken by parties on racial issues have forged party images or reputations reflective of these differences (Carmines and Stimson 1989;Heit and Nicholson 2016;Philpot 2007) and these reputations shape evaluations of parties and politicians (Carmines and Stimson 1989;Hutchings and Valentino 2004;Jardina 2019;Kinder and Sanders 1996;Mendelberg 2001;Nicholson 2005;Reny, Collingwood, and Valenzuela 2019;Sheagley, Chen, and Farhart 2017;Tesler 2016;Tesler and Sears 2010;Valentino, Hutchings, and White 2002;Valentino, Neuner, and Vandenbroek 2018;Sides, Tesler and Vavreck 2019;Segura and Valenzuela 2010). Similarly, racial attitudes are a primary ingredient in explaining public support for a variety of policy proposals (Brader, Valentino, and Suhay 2008;Gilens 1999;Jardina 2019;Kinder and Sanders 1996;Pérez 2010;Tesler 2012).…”