Ethnicity and electoral choice: Mexican-American voting behavior in the California 30th congressional district (original) (raw)

Public Resistance to Electing Asian Americans in Southern California

Journal of Asian American Studies, 2002

T HE TRANSFORMATION OF REGIONAL POLITICS is a likely consequence of the resurgence of new Asian immigration since the mid-1960s into Southern California. Unlike immigrants from other parts of the world, recent Asian immigrants often come with education, skills, and, in many cases, family assets. Asian Americans are not only the fastest growing minority according to the 1990 Census, but they also possess socioeconomic levels, rates of naturalization, and voter turnout that are either comparable to or exceed those of non-Hispanic Whites. 1 These group-specific resources are fundamental to the acquisition of political power in electoral politics. Although Asian Americans in the aggregate still vote less than Blacks or Whites, more Asian Americans have been elected or appointed to local, state, and federal offices in recent years than in any other period of the group's 150 years in America. 2 For instance, in 1992, a newly created congressional district in Southern California elected Jay Kim, who became the first Korean-born person ever elected to the House. The same year also saw the election of Tony Lam, a Vietnamese refugee, who pioneered the entry of his ethnic group into electoral politics with his election to the city council of Westminster, California. In the 1996 election, Gary Locke, son of Chinese immigrants, became the first Asian American governor of a mainland state (Washington).

Metropolitan Latino Political Behavior: Voter Turnout and Candidate Preference in Los Angeles

Journal of Urban Affairs, 2005

Most research on Latino voting behavior conclusively finds that as a group, Latinos vote at lower rates than other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. In this article, we argue that given the appropriate circumstances, Latinos should be expected to vote at higher rates than other racial and ethnic groups. In particular, we think the presence of a viable Latino candidate will spur increased Latino turnout and that when Latinos candidates run for office, Latino voters will prefer the co-ethnic candidate. Analyzing precinct level returns from the Los Angeles 2001 mayoral and the 2000 presidential elections we show this may be the case. High-density Latino precincts show higher rates of turnout when Latino candidates are on the ballot, and these same precincts show heightened support for the co-ethnic candidate. In fact, for the first time ever in Los Angeles, the 2001 mayoral election witnessed Latinos voting at the highest rates of any racial or ethnic group in the city.

Personal Attributes and Latino Voting Behavior in Congress

Objective. Researchers have long examined the nature of representation, paying particular attention to the dynamics of descriptive and substantive representation in racial and ethnic communities. The objective of this article is to determine the extent to which personal attributes influence the voting behavior of Latino members of Congress. Methods. We test the relationship between legislator's personal attributes and Poole and Rosenthal's DW-NOMINATE scores for Latino members of the 101st–108th Congresses. Results. After controlling for institutional and electoral factors, results show that education, gender, nativity, and generation have significant effects on Latino legislators' voting behavior. Religion and national origin appear not to have an effect. Conclusions. This analysis shows that personal attributes predict Latino congressional voting even when controlling for district and institutional factors. As such, this study demonstrates that Latino legislators have in-group differences and therefore should not be considered a monolithic group.

Hispanic Voters, State and Local Elections: How to Awake the Sleeping Giant

Review of History and Political Science, 2018

In 2016, between one and two thousand Hispanic voters in the city of Hazleton came to the polls to vote for a woman regarded as a traditional insider. From 1991 to 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton, from every vantage point politically was considered a political insider. As First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, world traveler for the Clinton Foundation, and a multimillionaire, Secretary Clinton had very little in common with this voting bloc. (Galski, 2016) The only element that connected her with Hispanic voters was that she was a-Democrata‖. The purpose of this paper is not to revisit the defeat of Secretary Clinton, rather this paper considers the election used as a backdrop in seeking to juxtapose the enthusiasm witnessed among many Hispanic voters for Secretary Clinton and their apathy for a young female Hispanic candidate in a local council bid in the 2017 election. Why could Hazleton Hispanic voters identify with Secretary Clinton and turn out for her in significant numbers, but not a twenty-nine-year-old Hispanic female from their own city? Hazleton, Pennsylvania is a small city with a rapidly growing Hispanic population of nearly 60% (Lussenhop, 2016). A young woman of Dominican background, Nicol Soto, worked tirelessly to win a primary nomination for a city council seat. She could not mobilize the same Hispanic wave that six months earlier led to Secretary Clinton defeating Donald Trump in the city of Hazleton.(Politico Podcast: Live Presidential Electlion Results, 2016). A favorite son, Congressman Lou Barletta, a strong Republican Trump supporter, also showed weakness in his home town because of the Hispanic voters who turned out. While the Congressman easily won re-election, he only narrowly won his hometown by 36 votes (Galski, 2016). This paper is concerned with voting trends of Hazleton's Hispanic community. This community produced a blue spot in what became an overwhelming red county and state in the national election of 2016. Democrats both Native and Hispanic coordinated an effort of campaigning for Secretary Clinton that has not been seen in quite a while in that region. Yet, when a Hispanic woman ran as a candidate in a local primary election, the community did not come out to support her. To examine effectively the situation, this author covered the following points in this paper. First,the author considered voting differences in local, state and national primary elections and investigated to identify in which elections Spanish-speakers were most likely to participate and vote. Second, Spanish-speaking voters in Hazleton were compared to communities in which Hispanic residents have lived nearly fifty years longer to investigate whether duration of residency and comfort living there would make a difference in the amount of participation. Third, the author reviewed election results, with an emphasis on primary elections for the last seven years to observe voting trends in the municipality in question. An investigation of which wards first developed concentrations of Spanish-speakers were compared to increasing number of wards where Spanish-speakers make up significant voting blocks in 2017. Finally, the author identified key characteristics that may identify when and how a significant and at times a majority of a city's population can rise from a sleeping giant to an active one on the local political scene.

“The Importance of Race and Ethnicity in Congressional Primary Elections

Research regarding the electoral importance of race and ethnicity in congressional elections is limited by the overwhelming focus on general-election outcomes. This article seeks to extend this research by examining minority candidate emergence and electoral competition in U.S. House primary elections, using a new data set on all U.S. House contests between 1994 and 2004 that includes demographic information on all the candidates in the primary elections.

Racial and Partisan Voting in a Tri-Ethnic City: The 1996 Dade County Mayoral Election

Journal of Urban Affairs, 2001

Through an analysis of the 1996 Dade County, Florida mayoral election, this article explains which is more important in vote choice in a racially-diverse polityethnicity or partisanship. We directly test this question in a metropolitan local election that constitutes a unique natural experiment. In September 1996, Dade County held a mayoral election with four major candidates whose partisan and ethnic interactions were not normal for the political history of the area: a Black Republican, a Puerto Rican Democrat, a Cuban American Democrat, and a Cuban American Independent. There was no non-Hispanic White (Anglo) candidate, even though Anglos constituted the bare plurality of the county's registered voters. In the October runoff, the Black Republican challenged the Cuban American Democrat in a county where over 80% of registered Black voters are Democrats, and over 60% of registered Hispanic voters are Republicans. As such, this election gives scholars a unique opportunity to untangle the effects of ethnicity and partisanship on vote choice. Using a three-wave survey of Dade County voters in 1996, we find that ethnicity was an overwhelmingly more powerful predictor of vote choice than partisanship. We assess the implications of how this study can be generalized to other multi-ethnic polities. The 1996 mayoral election in Dade County, Florida dramatically illustrates the power and persistence of ethnic and racial voting in the United States. This election witnessed tens of thousands of Cuban American Republicans crossing party lines to vote for a well-known Cuban Democrat at the same time that tens of thousands of African American Democrats crossed party lines to vote for a prominent Black Republican. The significance of the Dade County mayoral election lies in the fact that it ultimately pitted two candidates against each other who had in the past used their partisan identifications to appeal across ethnic lines. This set up a natural experiment in voting theory. In a tri-ethnic (Anglo, Hispanic, and Black) polity such as Dade County, Florida, which factor is the more important determinant of vote choice-ethnicity or partisanship? Because of the reversal of stereotypical partisan-ethnic identity among the major

Issues and Candidates: Colorado Latino/a Vote Choices

An important question of representation is whether ethnic identity has an influence on minority political behavior and, in turn, how this influence is demonstrated in representation. Competing theories assume that minority voters have special interests that they express in voting for candidates who share their interests, while others assume that they vote for a candidate they can identify with. In some cases, voters get to vote directly on the issues. In the 2002 Colorado General Election, a "perfect storm" of candidates and issues were on the ballot, allowing a laboratory for testing these theories. Statewide races included three Latinos on the ballot, along with two ballot issues that were directly related to Latino/a interests. Here, I use a factor analysis to show that Latino/a influence is important in Colorado. I also show that Latino/a influence in a county is directly related to support for Latino/a candidates and, to a lesser extent, issues. However, I also show that Latino/a influence has a positive effect for Latino/a candidates even if that candidate is not supportive of Latino/a interests. By using a more complex methodology, I also show that candidate identification has an independent effect from indirect issue voting. My conclusion is that race matters in Colorado and that descriptive representation is necessary to promote inclusiveness.

How Race-Relations Have Determined Voting Behavior Since the Civil Rights Era

2007

In contemporary American Politics, there have been many studies on voting behavior. They have included topics such as bloc voting, coalition building to form an electoral majority, and 3 rd party voting. This paper addresses the question why some racially diverse regions and states have tended to vote Republican in contemporary Presidential elections, while others have tended to vote Democratic. My hypothesis is that race relations have been a major factor in determining voting behavior since the 1964 Presidential elections. I argue that in regions and states where race-relations are polarized, racial issues are generally more salient than other issues, and these regions as well as states generally vote Republican in Presidential elections. In regions and states where race-relations tend to be more harmonious, racial issues are tend to be less salient, and these states generally vote Democratic in Presidential elections. I measure racial polarization in a variety of ways such as differing voting reactions based on issues with a strong racial component, rates of interracial marriages, electoral reactions to policy, and strength of organized racism. The findings generally confirm my hypothesis, although there a few regions as well as states where the findings are not entirely in line with my hypothesis.

Differencial influences on electoral latino participation

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