Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T05:15:55.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Role of Whiteness in the 2016 Presidential Primaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2019

Tehama Lopez Bunyasi Open the ORCID record for Tehama Lopez Bunyasi [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Donald Trump initiated his run for president by framing the United States as a nation in descent. Adopting the slogan “Make America Great Again,” he set his campaign against a backdrop of loss and declared a mission for reclamation. Numerous analysts claim that his candidacy and rhetoric galvanized white voters who feel left behind by changing times, but few have been able to provide direct evidence of a racialized sense of disadvantage, and most polls were not prepared to ask such specific questions prior to the Iowa Caucus. Using data from the National Study of Color-Blindness and Race-Consciousness—a unique nationally-sampled dataset fielded two weeks before the beginning of the 2016 primary election season—I demonstrate that Trump was not only the most popular candidate among white voters, but that he was especially supported by whites who think that their racial group fares worse in the job market than do black Americans, who feel that being white has been personally detrimental to their job prospects; who believe that there are generally more disadvantages to being white than there are advantages; and who disagree with the notion that systematic racism mainly benefits whites. My analysis argues that how whites think about whiteness mattered for their likelihood to support Donald Trump.

Type
Special Section: Causes
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 679 - 698
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

A list of permanent links to Supplemental Materials provided by the authors precedes the References section.

*

Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WHLUMW

She would like to thank Bonnie Weir, Agnieszka Paczynska, Thomas Flores, Irfan Nooruddin, and the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. Funding for the survey data used here was awarded by George Mason University’s Office of Research.

References

Anderson, Carol. 2016. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. New York: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Baker, Reg, Blumberg, Stephen J., Brick, J. Michael, Couper, Mick P., Courtright, Melanie, Michael Dennis, J., Dillman, Don, Frankel, Martin R., Garland, Philip, Groves, Robert M., Kennedy, Courtney, Krosnick, Jon, Lavrakas, Paul J., Lee, Sunghee, Link, Michael, Piekarski, Linda, Rao, Kumar, Thomas, Randall K., and Zahs, Dan. 2010. “Research Synthesis. AAPOR Report on Online Panels.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 74(4): 711–81.Google Scholar
Barnett, Jessica C. and Vornovitsky, Marina S.. 2016. Current Population Reports, P60-257(RV), Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2015, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence. 1983. “Whites’ Opposition to Busing: Symbolic Racism or Realistic Group Conflict?” Journal of Personality and Social Pyschology 45(6): 1196–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence. 1999. “Prejudice as Group Position: Microfoundations of a Sociological Approach to Racism and Race Relations.” Journal of Social Issues 55(3): 445–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence, Kluegel, James R., and Smith, Ryan A.. 1997. “Laissez Faire Racism: The Crystallization of a ‘Kinder, Gentler’ Anti-black Ideology.” In Racial Attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and Change, ed. Tuch, Steven A. and Martin, J. K., 15–42. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence and Zubrinksky, Camille L.. 1996. “Attitudes on Residential Integration: Perceived Status Differences, Mere In-Group Preference, or Racial Prejudice?” Social Forces 74(3): 883–909.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2006. Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, Lewis, Amanda, and Embrick, David G.. 2004. “‘I Did Not Get That Job Because of a Black Man.’” The Story Lines and Testimonies of Color-Blind Racism.” Sociological Forum 19(4): 555–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branscombe, Nyla R., Schmitt, Michael T., and Schiffhauer, Kristin. 2007. “Racial Attitudes in Response to Thoughts on White Privilege.” European Journal of Social Psychology 37(2): 203–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. 2016. “New Release.” February 5. Retrieved March 15, 2018. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02052016.pdf.Google Scholar
Cohen, Cathy J., Fowler, Matthew, Medenica, Vladimir E., and Rogowski, Jon C.. 2017. “The ‘Woke’ Generation? Millennial Attitudes on Race in the US.” GenForward Survey. Retrieved March 14, 2018. https://genforwardsurvey.com/assets/uploads/2017/10/GenForward-Oct-2017-Final-Report.pdf.Google ScholarPubMed
Croll, Paul R. 2007. “Modeling Determinants of White Racial Identity: Results from a New National Survey.” Social Forces 86(2): 613–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croll, Paul R. 2011. “Explanations for Racial Disadvantage and Racial Advantage: Beliefs about Both Sides of Inequality in America.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(1): 1–28.Google Scholar
Dawson, Michael C. 1994. Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
DiAngelo, Robin. 2011. “White Fragility.” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3(3): 54–70.Google Scholar
Dodou, Dimitra and de Winter, Joost. 2014. “Social Desirability Is the Same in Offline, Online, and Paper Surveys: A Meta-Analysis.” Computers in Human Behavior 36: 487–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1992 [1935]. Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880. First ed. facsimile with an introduction by Lewis, D.L.. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Fahimi, Mansour, Barlas, Frances M., Thomas, Randall K., and Buttermore, Nicole. 2015. “Scientific Surveys Based on Incomplete Sampling Frames and High Rates of Nonresponse.” Survey Practice 8(5): 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feagin, Joe R. and Eileen, O’Brien. 2003. White Men on Race: Power, Privilege, and the Shaping of Cultural Consciousness. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Flagg, Barbara J. 1993. “‘Was Blind, but Now I See’: White Race Consciousness and the Requirement of Discriminatory Intent.” Michigan Law Review 91(5): 953–1017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Matthew R. 2017. “White Group Consciousness among Dwindling Dominance: The Meaning of Linked Fate Among White Americans in a Changing Demographic Landscape.” PhD dissertation, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington. IN.Google Scholar
Fowler, Matthew, Medenica, Vladimir E., and Cohen, Cathy J.. 2017. “Why 41 Percent of White Millennials Voted for Trump.” Monkey Cage blog at The Washington Post December 15. Retrieved October 12, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/12/15/racial-resentment-is-why-41-percent-of-White-millennials-voted-for-trump-in-2016/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.61c403abf0b3.Google Scholar
Frankenberg, Ruth. 1993. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gest, Justin. 2016. The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gurr, Ted. 1970. Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Cheryl I. 1993. “Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review 106(8): 1707–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartmann, Douglas, Gerteis, Joseph, and Croll, Paul R.. 2009. “An Empirical Assessment of Whiteness Theory: Hidden from How Many?” Social Problems 56(3): 403–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helms, Janet E. 1984. “Toward a Theoretical Explanation of the Effects of Race on Counseling: A Black and White Model.” The Counseling Psychologist 12(4): 153–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughey, Matthew W. 2012. White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meaning of Race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hunt, Matthew O. 2004. “Race/Ethnicity and Beliefs about Wealth and Poverty.” Social Science Quarterly 85(3): 827–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Matthew Frye. 1998. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jardina, Ashley. 2014. “Demise of Dominance: Group Threat and the New Relevance of White Identity for American Politics.” PhD dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,MI.Google Scholar
Jardina, Ashley. 2015. “White Racial Consciousness in the 2016 ANES Pilot Study Proposal.” http://forum.electionstudies.org/proposal-for-the-2016-pilot-study-white-racial-consciousness-in-the-u-s/.Google Scholar
Johnson, Allan G. 2006. Privilege, Power, and Difference. Columbus, OH: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Jones, Robert P., Cox, Daniel, and Lienesch, Rachel. 2017. “Beyond Economics: Fears of Cultural Displacement Pushed the White Working Class to Trump| PRRI/The Atlantic Report.” Public Religion Research Institute . Retrieved October 12, 2018. https://www.prri.org/research/White-working-class-attitudes-economy-trade-immigration-election-donald-trump/.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. and Dale-Riddle., Allison 2012. The End of Race? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. and Kam, Cindy D.. 2010. Us against Them: Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. and Sanders, Lynn M.. 1996. Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. and Sears, David. 1981. “Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism versus Racial Threats to the Good Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40: 414–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kluegel, James R. and Smith., Eliot R. 1986. Beliefs about Inequality: Americans’ Views of What Is and What Ought to Be. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Knowles, Eric D. and Lowery, Brian S.. 2012. “Meritocracy, Self-Concerns, and Whites’ Denial of Racial Inequity.” Self and Identity 11(2): 202–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krumpal, Ivar. 2013. “Determinants of Social Desirability Bias in Sensitive Surveys: A Literature Review.” Quality and Quantity 47(4): 2025–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipsitz, George. 1998. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Lopez Bunyasi, Tehama. 2015. “Color-Cognizance and Color-blindness in White America: Perceptions of Whiteness and Their Potential to Predict Racial Policy Attitudes at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1(2): 209–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lopez Bunyasi, Tehama and Wright Rigueur, Leah. 2015. “‘Breaking Bad’ in Black and White: What Ideological Deviance Can Tell Us about the Construction of ‘Authentic’ Racial Identities.” Polity 47(2): 175–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lopez Bunyasi, Tehama and Smith, Candis Watts. 2019. Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Lowery, Brian S., Knowles, Eric D., and Unzueta, Miguel M.. 2007. “Framing Inequality Safely: Whites’ Motivated Perceptions of Racial Privilege.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 33(9): 1237–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luttig, Matthew D., Federico, Christopher M., and Howard, Lavine. 2017. “Supporters and Opponents of Donald Trump Respond Differently to Racial Cues: An Experimental Analysis.” Research and Politics October-December 1-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Major, Brenda, Blodorn, Alison, and Major Blascovich, Gregory. 2018. “The Threat of Increasing Diversity: Why Many White Americans Support Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 21(6): 931–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malhotra, Neil and Krosnick, Jon A.. 2007. “The Effect of Survey Mode and Sampling on Inferences about Political Attitudes and Behavior: Comparing the 2000 and 2004 ANES to Internet Surveys with Nonprobability Samples.” Political Analysis 15(3): 286–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manning, Alex, Hartmann, Douglas, and Gerteis, Joseph. 2015. “Colorblindness in Black and White: An Analysis of Core Tenets, Configurations, and Complexities.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1(4): 532–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntosh, Peggy. 1997. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies.” In Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror, ed Delgado, Richard and Stefancic, Jean,291–299. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
McKinney, Karyn D. 2005. Being White: Stories of Race and Racism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mendelberg, Tali. 2001. The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Arthur H., Gurin, Patricia, Gurin, Gerald, and Malanchuk, Oksana. 1981. “Group Consciousness and Political Participation.” American Journal of Political Science 25(3): 494–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, Diana C. 2018. “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved October 12, 2018. http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/04/18/1718155115.full.pdf.Google Scholar
Neville, Helen A., Lilly, Roderick L., Duran, Georgia, Lee, Richard M., and LaVonne, Browne. 2000. “Constructing and Initial Validation of the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS).” Journal of Counseling Psychology 47(1): 59–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nteta, Tatishe M. and Schaffner., Brian March 5, 2016. “New Poll Shows Trump Supporters More Likely to Fear Majority-Minority U.S.” Monkey Cage blog at The Washington Post March 5. Retrieved March 15, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/05/new-poll-shows-trump-supporters-more-likely-to-fear-a-majority-minority-u-s/?utm_term=.a59b466d83d8.Google Scholar
Powell, Adam A., Branscombe, Nyla R., and Schmitt, Michael T.. 2005. “Inequality as Ingroup Privilege or Outgroup Disadvantage: The Impact of Group Focus on Collective Guilt and Interracial Attitudes.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31(4): 508–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roediger, David R. 1991.Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Roediger, David R.ed. 1998. Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to be White. New York: Schocken Books, Inc.Google Scholar
Rovner, Julie. 2016. “A Record Percentage of Americans now have Health Insurance.” Time, September 13,. Retrieved March 15, 2018. http://time.com/money/4490196/health-insurance-coverage-census-2015/.Google Scholar
Sanchez, Gabriel R. and Vargas, Edward D.. 2016. “Taking a Closer Look at Group Identity: The Link between Theory and Measurement of Group Consciousness and Linked Fate.” Political Research Quarterly 69(1): 160–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, Brian F., MacWilliams, Matthew, and Nteta, Tatishe. 2018. “Understanding White Polaization in the 2016 Vote for President: The Sobering Role of Racism and Sexism.” Political Science Quarterly 133(1): 9–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidanius, Jim and Pratto, Felicia. 1999. Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spanierman, Lisa B. and Heppner, Mary J.. 2004. “Psychosocial Costs of Racism to Whites Scale (PCRW): Construction and Initial Validation.” Journal of Counseling Psychology 51: 249–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swim, Janet K. and Miller., Deborah L. 1999. “White Guilt: Its Antecedents and Consequences for Attitudes toward Affirmative Action.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25(4): 500–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, Henri. 1981. Human Groups and Social Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tesler, Michael. 2012. “The Spillover of Racialization into Health Care: How President Obama Polarized Public Opinion by Racial Attitudes and Race.” American Journal of Political Science 56(3): 690–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tesler, Michael. 2016a. Post-Racial or Most Racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tesler, Michael. 2016b. “Views about Race Mattered More in Electing Trump Than in Electing Obama.” Monkey Cage blog at The Washington Post, November 22. Retrieved March 14, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/22/peoples-views-about-race-mattered-more-in-electing-trump-than-in-electing-obama/?utm_term=.88f447f5ff07.Google Scholar
Tesler, Michael and Sears, David O.. 2010. Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post Racial America . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tesler, Michael and Sides, John. 2016. “How Political Science Helps Explain the Rise of Trump: The Role of White Identity and Grievances.” Monkey Cage blog at The Washington Post March 3. Retrieved April 2, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/03/how-political-science-helps-explain-the-rise-of-trump-the-role-of-white-identity-and-grievances/?utm_term=.7fc419e362b1.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Blog. 2016. “GDP Increases in Fourth Quarter.” BEA Blog, January 29,. Retrieved March 15, 2018. https://blog.bea.gov/2016/01/.Google Scholar
Weller, Nicholas and Jane Junn, . 2018. “Racial Identity and Voting: Conceptualizing White Identity in Spatial Terms.” Perspectives on Politics 16(2): 436–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, Cara and Cho, Grace E.. 2005. “Two-Headed Coins or Kandinskys: White Racial Identification.” Political Psychology 26(5): 699–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeager, David S., Krosnick, Jon A., Chang, Linchiat, Javitz, Harold S., Levendusky, Matthew S., Simpser, Alberto, and Wang, Rui. 2011. “Comparing the Accuracy of RDD Telephone Surveys and Internet Surveys Conducted with Probability and Non-Probability Samples.” Public Opinion Quarterly 75(4): 709–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material

Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material 1

Download Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material(File)
File 111.4 KB
Supplementary material: Image

Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material

Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material 2

Download Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material(Image)
Image 7.8 MB
Supplementary material: Image

Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material

Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material 3

Download Lopez Bunyasi supplementary material(Image)
Image 7.8 MB
Supplementary material: Link

Lopez Bunyasi Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WHLUMW
Link