The Political Consequences of Latino Prejudice against Blacks

Abstract

A good deal of scholarship examines the effects of prejudice against blacks on public opinion and vote choice in the United States. Despite producing valuable insights, this research largely ignores the attitudes of Latinos—a critical omission, since Latinos constitute a rapidly growing share of the population. Using two nationally representative survey data sets, we find that the level of racial prejudice is comparable for Latinos and non-Hispanic whites. Equally comparable are associations between prejudice and political preferences: policy opinion and support for Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Our findings suggest that despite demographic changes, efforts to enact policies intended to assist blacks and elect black candidates will continue to be undermined by prejudice. That said, Latinos are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to support policies intended to assist blacks, because Latinos are more Democratic than non-Hispanic whites, more egalitarian, and less committed to the value of limited government.

Research in political science has made many valuable contributions to our understanding of the role racial prejudice plays in American politics. In the midst of continuing debates over measurement (see Huddy and Feldman [2009] for a review), scholars agree that prejudice against blacks undermines white support for a variety of policies intended to aid blacks, including equal opportunity in employment, school desegregation, spending on programs to assist blacks, and affirmative action for blacks in hiring and college admissions (e.g., Hurwitz and Peffley 2005; Kinder and McConnaughy 2006). Studies have also shown that prejudice against blacks influences white opinion about ostensibly nonracial issues such as crime, the death penalty, and welfare (e.g., Kinder and Sanders 1996; Gilens 1999; Soss, Langbein, and Metelko 2003). Finally, in at least some cases, including the 2008 presidential election, prejudice against blacks has eroded white support for black candidates (Hutchings 2009; Tesler and Sears 2010; Kalmoe and Piston 2013; Krupnikov and Piston 2015a).

Although this research has set a strong foundation for the study of racial prejudice, it suffers from a key limitation: as Hutchings and Piston (2011) write, existing scholarship focuses nearly exclusively on white attitudes toward blacks. This limitation has become particularly critical as Latinos constitute a rapidly increasing share of the population (and the electorate). Indeed, Latino attitudes toward blacks may have important implications for the future of American politics: if racial prejudice has less influence among this rapidly growing group than among non-Hispanic whites, the demographic changes of the twenty-first century are likely to reduce the net impact of prejudice against blacks on the policy opinions and voting behavior of Americans.

In the past few years, a handful of studies have begun to examine the possibility that racial prejudice shapes Latino policy opinion and vote choice. We build on these studies, using two nationally representative samples of Latino citizens to analyze the effects of prejudice against blacks on public opinion about a variety of policies, and on vote choice as well. We also examine important intra-group variation, assessing whether the level and effects of prejudice vary across Latino citizens born inside and outside the United States (Kaufmann 2003; Sanchez 2008).

Furthermore, our results contribute to a burgeoning literature on mass attitudes and relations between Latinos and blacks in the United States. Although existing research makes valuable contributions to the understanding of Latino perceptions of economic competition with blacks, especially in metropolitan areas, our work fills gaps in this scholarship by focusing on Latino prejudice toward blacks and its political consequences. We make an additional contribution as well: as Hero and Preuhs (2013) point out, “virtually absent” from existing scholarship “is a systematic assessment of minority intergroup relations at the national level” (1). ¹ Finally, we also address possible causes of the Latino/white divide in public opinion and electoral behavior. The findings we present have significant implications for scholars’ understanding of the influence of racial prejudice on public opinion and political behavior amid rapid demographic changes in the twenty-first century.

Latino Attitudes toward Blacks: Current Literature and Our Approach

Much of the research addressing relations between Latinos and blacks focuses on whether white dominance in metropolitan areas makes Latinos and blacks natural political allies or leaves them locked in a zero-sum struggle over the same piece of the municipal pie (e.g., Meier et al. 2004; McClain 2006; Segura and Rodrigues 2006; Kaufmann 2007). In turn, much of this research has focused on whether Latinos perceive disproportionately high levels of competition with blacks (McClain et al. 2006) or not (Barreto and Sanchez 2009).

Although this work has set the foundation for scholars’ understanding of relations between Latinos and blacks, it is not without limitations. The bulk of this literature focuses on the prospects of local Latino/black coalition-building and perceptions of competition for resources between blacks and Latinos. As a result, the previous literature is consistent with what Bobo and Hutchings (1996) call “the self-interest model” of racial hostility. Our approach focuses on racial prejudice in the tradition of Allport (1954), who states that prejudice is “an antipathy based on a faulty and inflexible generalization.” As Bobo and Hutchings (1996) explain, what distinguishes the self-interest model and the prejudice model is that the self-interest model considers “material conditions of the individual’s current social existence,” while prejudice addresses what they term a more “psychological…calculus” (954). Our focus, therefore, is on this more “affective” hostility. Perceptions of competition are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for racial prejudice under this definition. It is possible, for example, that Latinos who fear black gains in municipal jobs at the expense of Latino gains in municipal jobs do so without harboring negative attitudes toward blacks, but it is also possible that Latinos who have no worries about competition harbor prejudice against blacks that is strong enough to shift their political preferences.

Of course, some studies do consider affective hostility as well, but many of them (Bobo and Hutchings 1996; Mindiola, Niemann, and Rodriguez 2002; McClain et al. 2006) limit their data-collection efforts to a single metropolitan area, making it difficult to generalize to the Latino population as a whole. ² This is a crucial limitation, as previous research has found evidence of regional differences (Barreto and Sanchez 2009).

The paucity of research about national patterns of Latino prejudice against blacks means that less still is known about the consequences of prejudice against blacks for Latino public opinion and vote choice (Bowler and Segura 2012). 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. 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).

In sum, while existing results do suggest the possibility that substantial proportions of Latinos may harbor animosity toward blacks, the political consequences of this animosity at the national level remain unclear.

Theoretical Expectations

When analyzing prejudice among Latinos, there is reason to believe that levels of assimilation to the American culture will play an important role, and we view place of birth to be a proxy for assimilation to the culture of racial politics in the United States. Accordingly, we give particular attention to place of birth as a potentially influential site of intra-group variation.

First, we expect that those Latinos born in the United States are not free of prejudice against blacks. Blacks occupy a subordinate position in this country’s racial hierarchy (Kinder and Dale-Riddle 2012). To the extent that prejudice arises from social conditions (Jackman 1994), it makes sense that Latinos born in the United States—steeped in this country’s culture of racial politics—can internalize negative attitudes about blacks. That said, Latinos born outside the United States may also not be free of prejudice against blacks. To be sure, the pan-ethnic term “Latino” describes a widely diverse people from many different regions of the world. Yet, nearly all—if not all—of these societies have a racial hierarchy in which dark skin color is associated with lower status (e.g., Hooker 2005), reinforced by state policies of blanqueamiento and, we expect, leading to prejudiced attitudes among at least some Latinos.

We also expect to observe that prejudice against blacks is brought to bear on Latino opinions about a range of policies explicitly associated with blacks, such as affirmative action for blacks and federal government spending on aid to blacks. This expectation derives from a vibrant tradition of research on “group-centrism” (Converse 1964; Nelson and Kinder 1996); as Kinder and Dale-Riddle (2012) note, numerous studies demonstrate that people’s policy opinions are often a function of their attitudes toward the groups these policies are designed to benefit. When a given group is clearly specified as the beneficiary (or victim) of a policy, many people will evaluate the policy at least in part based on how they feel about the group. As it is with policies, so it is with candidates for public office: in at least some cases, voters judge candidates based on the social groups to which they belong (Kinder and Dale-Riddle 2012).

However, in the case of ostensibly nonracial policies—those that are not explicitly associated with blacks—the effect of Latino prejudice against blacks should be contingent on birthplace. Consider the example of welfare: unlike affirmative action for blacks, this policy does not exclusively benefit a particular racial group. Why, then, do so many studies show that prejudice against blacks erodes white support for welfare? Gilens (1999) argues that beginning in the late 1960s, media coverage of welfare has disproportionately represented blacks, creating a welfare/black association in the minds of many in the public. Accordingly, the relationship he finds between prejudice and opinion about welfare is not inevitable but a historically contingent outcome, one produced in a specific time period (beginning in the late 1960s) by a specific set of actors (the media). A white US citizen in 1945 would be unlikely to have associated welfare with black people; for the same reason, we argue, those Latinos born outside the United States will also be unlikely to do so. Indeed, acculturation has been found to have large effects on the political attitudes of Latinos (Branton 2007), including racial attitudes (Kaufmann 2003). In sum, we expect that prejudice will influence attitudes about policies that are implicitly associated with blacks only among Latinos who are born in the United States.

Data and Measures

We test our hypotheses using the American National Election Studies (ANES) Time Series Survey conducted in 2008, and supplement these analyses with the 2012 ANES. Details about these surveys, including exact question wording, can be found in the appendix. The 2008 ANES is the first iteration of that survey to include a nationally representative sample of Latino citizens, necessitating Spanish-language interviews for some respondents (Lee and Perez 2014). We analyze the attitudes of Latinos born in the United States and Latinos born outside the United States. To place the attitudes of Latinos in context, we also include analyses of non-Hispanic white and black respondents. All analyses are weighted for national representativeness, all statistical tests are two-tailed, and all variables are standardized from 0 to 1 unless otherwise indicated.

The analyses include three types of dependent variables: (1) questions measuring support for policies explicitly associated with blacks: affirmative action for blacks, federal spending on aid to blacks, and federal government efforts to ensure that blacks are not victims of discrimination in the labor market; (2) questions measuring support for policies that are ostensibly nonracial but tied to racial attitudes in the minds of substantial proportions of whites: welfare and the death penalty (Gilens 1999; Soss et al. 2003); and (3) vote choice in the 2008 presidential election. Question wording for these dependent variables is in the appendix to this article.

Prejudice was measured by two separate, widely accepted sets of questions. The first is a stereotype battery: the questions ask respondents to evaluate how lazy (versus hardworking) and how unintelligent (versus intelligent) blacks are on a 1–7 scale. Responses to these stereotype questions have been found to be associated with white public opinion about policies related to blacks and white opposition to black candidates (e.g., Hutchings 2009; Piston 2010; Krupnikov and Piston 2015b). That said, the stereotype questions are quite direct, and hence potentially influenced by social desirability pressures (Huddy and Feldman 2009). Accordingly, the 2008 ANES measured these stereotypes using Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (ACASI); respondents entered their answers to the questions directly into a computer, out of view of the interviewer.

Stereotypes are thought to capture a cognitive component of prejudice; therefore, we also employ a measure of “affective prejudice” (Pettigrew 1997): the denial of sympathy for blacks. Thought of as a type of subtle prejudice, this measure is argued to more often evade social desirability pressures than more blatant forms of prejudice. The logic behind this argument is that it is more socially acceptable to refrain from saying something positive about a minority group than to say something negative about the same group. Including both of these sets of questions allows us to assess the robustness of our results across measures of prejudice. Furthermore, as we note at other points in the results, a set of analyses using the racial resentment battery (Kinder and Sanders 1996) yields results consistent with the patterns reported here (we present the full set of these results in online appendix 4).

Empirical Analyses

We first present the level of Latino support: for policies intended to aid blacks; for policies associated with blacks only indirectly; for Obama in the 2008 election; and for Latino prejudice against blacks. We next examine the effects of prejudice on public opinion and political behavior. After conducting a series of robustness checks on these analyses, we repeat the analyses for a second data set—the 2012 ANES. We conclude the analyses by examining determinants of the Latino/white divide in policy opinion and electoral choice.

LATINO SUPPORT FOR POLICIES RELATED TO BLACKS AND VOTE CHOICE

Figure 1 illustrates support for various policies by ANES respondent race/ethnicity. Across all three explicitly racial policies, the gaps between blacks and whites range between 32 and 46 percentage points. Regarding implicitly racial policies, while the gap between blacks and whites remains large for the death penalty, it is somewhat smaller for welfare, at 16 percentage points. The largest divide is vote choice: 99 percent of blacks voted for Obama, compared to 43 percent of whites. This white/black racial gap is consistent with previous research (e.g., Kinder and Sanders 1996; Kinder and Winter 2001).

Figure 1.

Public Opinion and Vote Choice in 2008 by Race/Ethnicity. Figure represents the percentage of group supporting policy, data from the 2008 ANES, 95 percent confidence intervals. The fair employment question is branched, and the data in this figure are based on the second of the two branching questions. Incorporating the first part of the branched question yields the following patterns: 22 percent of whites, 60 percent of blacks, 33 percent of US-born Latinos, and 35 percent of foreign-born Latinos support government efforts to end discrimination.

Latinos, as figure 1 shows, fall between whites and blacks on nearly every issue. That said, with regard to affirmative action, though Latinos support the policy in greater numbers than whites (about 20 percent compared to 10 percent), they are closer to whites than blacks. Furthermore, on welfare, there is no meaningful gap between whites and Latinos at all: support for welfare among both whites and Latinos is about 15 percentage points lower than among blacks. Taken together, these results indicate that Latino opinion about policies intended to aid blacks, policies implicitly associated with blacks, and Obama is typically between that of whites and blacks, albeit closer to whites in some cases.

LEVELS OF LATINO PREJUDICE AGAINST BLACKS

To what extent do Latinos hold prejudicial attitudes toward blacks? As figure 2 shows, the distribution of responses to the stereotype questions about blacks is similar among Latinos and whites. On a question about blacks’ work ethic, where “1” represents “hardworking” and “7” represents “lazy,” the average response among blacks is 2.86, skewed toward the “hardworking” end of the scale. In contrast, white and Latino responses are nearer the middle of the scale: the average white response is 4.10, the average response among Latinos born in the United States is 3.90, and the average response among Latinos born outside the United States is 4.34. White and Latino responses are statistically indistinguishable from each other but statistically different from blacks’ responses (p < 0.001). A similar pattern is evident among responses to the question about blacks’ intelligence.

Figure 2.

Prejudice against Blacks by Race/Ethnicity. Data from the 2008 ANES, 95 percent confidence intervals.

Furthermore, these results cannot be written off to a general tendency among Latinos to view any racial group negatively. Further analyses show that 55 percent of US-born Latinos rate blacks as lazier than they rate Latinos, while only 9 percent rate blacks as more hardworking than Latinos (the remaining 36 percent rate the two groups the same). Of foreign-born Latinos, 72 percent rate blacks as lazier than they rate Latinos, while only 12 percent rate blacks as more hardworking than Latinos (the remaining 16 percent rate both groups the same). A similar, although not as strong, pattern holds for the intelligence stereotype. ³

Our measure of affective prejudice, which has not been examined as often by previous research on Latino attitudes toward blacks, is reverse-coded, so that higher scores reflect denial of sympathy for blacks. The scale is 1–4: “1” indicates feeling sympathy for blacks “always,” while “4” indicates “never” feeling sympathy. Whites are more likely to deny sympathy, with an average score of 2.67, than are blacks, whose average score is 2.03. Here, too, Latino responses are similar to those of whites: the average score for US-born Latinos is 2.65, and the average score for foreign-born Latinos is 2.48. White and Latino responses are statistically indistinguishable from each other but distinguishable from the responses of blacks (p < 0.001). Across three questions, the level of Latino prejudice against blacks appears to be approximately equivalent to that of whites; furthermore, using a racial resentment scale as the measure of prejudice would yield similar results.

EFFECTS OF PREJUDICE AGAINST BLACKS ON LATINO PUBLIC OPINION AND VOTE CHOICE

If Latinos hold prejudicial attitudes toward blacks at levels similar to those of whites, are these attitudes as politically consequential? This section examines associations between racial attitudes, policy opinion, and vote choice, with an eye toward comparing US-born Latinos, foreign-born Latinos, and non-Hispanic whites. To assess our expectation that prejudice will influence opinion about policies explicitly associated with blacks among both US-born and foreign-born Latinos, we estimate a series of models in which the dependent variables are questions about policies intended to aid blacks. ⁴ Control variables include (1) party identification; (2) the core values of limited government (Markus 2001) and egalitarianism (Feldman 1988); and (3) demographics: age, gender, education, and income. ⁵

The inclusion of control variables leads to listwise deletion. ⁶ Given that listwise deletion can result in a loss in sample size and the potential for the introduction of bias, we rely on different approaches to deal with this loss of observations. First, we follow previous approaches by using multiple imputation (e.g., Gay 2002; Pasek et al. 2009), which relies on observed values within a data set to create a distribution of possible values on the missing observations. These distributions are then combined in such a way as to account for the overall uncertainty surrounding the missing data. This process, Pasek et al. (2009) write, is well suited to data that are missing due to non-response within a survey. ⁷

We also estimate the models using other approaches to ensure that our results are not dependent upon a particular estimation decision (online appendix 3). Regardless of approach, we see similar associations between prejudice against blacks and opinions.

As table 1 shows (see online appendix 2 for the full list of coefficient estimates), among US-born Latinos, both negative stereotypes and the denial of sympathy for blacks are negatively associated with support for policies intended to assist blacks. All the coefficients are in the expected direction, and five of six coefficients are statistically significant. Moreover, the magnitude of the effects is large, ranging from more than one-tenth to nearly one-quarter of the scale. Among foreign-born Latinos, the magnitude of the coefficients does not differ much from that of the US-born Latinos, and five of six coefficients are in the expected direction, but only one is statistically significant, which is possibly due to the low sample size for this group. Also, the results among whites are quite similar to those among native-born Latinos. It appears that at least among native-born Latinos, prejudice against blacks erodes support for policies intended to help blacks, consistent with expectations, and does so to about the same extent as it does among whites.

Table 1.

Racial Prejudice and Explicitly Racial Policy Opinion, by Race/Ethnicity (2008 ANES)

Latinos (US-born)
	Aff. action		Aid to blacks		Fair jobs
	(N = 451)		(N = 451)		(N = 451)
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)
Neg. stereotypes	–0.10	(0.09)	–0.24**	(0.08)	–0.32**	(0.12)
Denial of sympathy	–0.23**	(0.07)	–0.18**	(0.06)	–0.46**	(0.09)
Constant	0.67**	(0.17)	0.73**	(0.15)	1.10**	(0.21)
F-statistic	6.95		10.09		10.08
Latinos (born outside the US)
	Aff. action		Aid to blacks		Fair jobs
	(N = 128)		(N = 128)		(N = 128)
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)
Neg. stereotypes	–0.09	(0.15)	–0.03	(0.15)	–0.31	(0.19)
Denial of sympathy	–0.03	(0.12)	–0.22#	(0.12)	–0.25#	(0.15)
Constant	1.13**	(0.22)	0.88**	(0.23)	1.17**	(0.29)
F-statistic	3.25		2.18		2.46
Whites (non-Latino)
	Aff. action		Aid to blacks		Fair jobs
	(N = 1,110)		(N = 1,110)		(N = 1,110)
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)
Neg. stereotypes	–0.03	(0.05)	–0.17**	(0.05)	–0.38**	(0.08)
Denial of sympathy	–0.26**	(0.04)	–0.26**	(0.04)	–0.39**	(0.07)
Constant	0.46**	(0.09)	0.40**	(0.10)	0.80**	(0.15)
F-statistic	15.13		24.32		26.34

**p < 0.01; *p < 0.05; #p < 0.1 (all two-tailed, p < 0.1 presented due to small sample size for foreign-born Latinos); Ordinary least squares regression coefficients. Standard errors are in parentheses. All variables are coded from 0 to 1. Dependent variables (column heading) are policy attitudes. Coefficients on the following additional control variables are suppressed: party identification, limited government, egalitarianism, age, gender, and education (see online appendix 2 for the entire set of coefficient estimates). The data set is the 2008 American National Election Studies time-series survey; the analyses are weighted for national representativeness. Multiple imputation (m = 100) is used to deal with listwise deletion as reflected in the N; results without multiple imputation are shown in online appendix 3.

Table 2 includes models now predicting opinion about policies implicitly associated with blacks—the death penalty and welfare. As shown in the table (see online appendix 2 for the full set of coefficient estimates), a weaker relationship exists between public opinion and prejudice. Among native-born Latinos, while three of the four coefficients are in the expected direction, only one is statistically significant, and none are statistically significant for foreign-born Latinos. It is worth noting, however, that the pattern is similar for whites: three of the four coefficients are in the right direction, and only one is statistically significant. The relationship between these measures of prejudice and opinion about ostensibly nonracial policy is relatively weak throughout the sample.

Table 2.

Racial Prejudice, Implicitly Racial Policy Opinion, and Vote Choice, by Race/Ethnicity (2008 ANES)

Latinos (US-born)
	Death penalty		Welfare		Vote Obama
	(N = 451)		(N = 451)		(N = 296)
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)
Neg. stereotypes	0.08	(0.10)	–0.19**	(0.08)	–0.55	(1.21)
Denial of sympathy	0.16*	(0.08)	0.03	(0.07)	–1.57#	(0.82)
Constant	0.44*	(0.20)	0.64**	(0.16)	5.51**	(2.02)
F-statistic	4.82		2.21		7.12
Latinos (born outside the US)
	Death penalty		Welfare		Vote Obama
	(N = 128)		(N = 128)		(N = 81)
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	B	(SE)
Neg. stereotypes	0.10	(0.18)	–0.10	(0.10)	–3.14	(2.87)
Denial of sympathy	0.15	(0.15)	–0.07	(0.09)	–1.91#	(1.00)
Constant	0.39	(0.28)	0.80**	(0.17)	8.22	(4.96)
F-statistic	2.07		2.27		3.88
Whites (non-Latino)
	Death penalty		Welfare		Vote Obama
	(N = 1,110)		(N = 1,110)		(N = 841)
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	B	(SE)
Neg. stereotypes	0.12#	(0.07)	0.02	(0.05)	–0.69	(0.73)
Denial of sympathy	0.14**	(0.05)	–0.02	(0.04)	–0.92#	(0.51)
Constant	1.03**	(0.12)	0.76**	(0.09)	3.51**	(1.23)
F-statistic	12.38		3.32		17.00

**p < 0.01; *p < 0.05; #p < 0.1 (two-tailed, p < 0.1 presented due to smaller sample size for foreign-born Latinos); ordinary least squares (Death Penalty and Welfare) and logistic (Vote for Obama) regression coefficients. Standard errors are in parentheses. All variables are coded 0 to 1. Dependent variables (column heading) are policy attitudes and vote choice in the 2008 presidential election. Coefficients on the following additional control variables are suppressed: party identification, limited government, egalitarianism, age, gender, and education. The data set is the 2008 American National Election Studies time-series survey; the analyses are weighted for national representativeness. Multiple imputation (m = 100) is used to deal with missing cases and listwise deletion; results without multiple imputation are included in online appendix 3. The difference in sample size between vote choice and the remaining dependent variables is due to the fact that the vote choice question is asked only of respondents who reported that they voted in the presidential election. Results are robust to the inclusion of those who did not turn out to vote in the 0 category; see online appendix 3.

For vote choice in the 2008 presidential election, some evidence exists of the impact of racial prejudice; it appears that among Latinos born in the United States, Latinos born outside the United States, and whites, prejudice eroded Obama’s vote share at roughly similar levels. ⁸ Nonetheless, the patterns here are less consistent and weaker ⁹ than those we observe when we consider the explicit racial policies and do not extend to the racial resentment battery.

When the same models are estimated using the racial resentment measures, results point to the same patterns as those shown in tables 1 and 2. Racial resentment has a strong relationship with opinion about policies that are explicitly associated with blacks, but a weaker relationship with opinion about policies implicitly associated with blacks (online appendix 4).

According to robustness checks, our results are robust to the exclusion of Latino respondents who also identify as either white or black. Second, we examine the possibility that Latinos in certain regions of the country, or Latinos whose heritage is from certain countries, are driving the results. While our ability to analyze subpopulations is somewhat limited by sample size, the analyses conducted suggest that the effects of prejudice observed here can be found among Latinos across different regions of the United States and different heritages.

PATTERNS IN 2012

The 2012 ANES offers another robustness check. This data set is useful because, much like the 2008 ANES, it includes an oversample of Latinos. To make the most consistent comparisons between the 2008 and 2012 data, we use the face-to-face (FTF) interviews conducted in 2012. ¹⁰

These two surveys allow for a direct comparison of opinions about affirmative action, aid to blacks and the death penalty, as well as individual positions on the racial stereotype scales. The 2008 and the 2012 surveys, however, rely on different questions to measure the extent to which people believe the government should ensure fair employment for blacks and use different response options to measure welfare positions and sympathy for blacks. These differences prevent direct comparisons between 2008 and 2012. ¹¹

The descriptive patterns across outcome variables shown in figure 3 are similar to those in 2008. Four years later, Latinos still fall between whites and blacks, although Latinos are more often closer to whites than to blacks.

Figure 3.

Public Opinion and Vote Choice in 2012 by Race/Ethnicity. Figure represents the percentage of group supporting policy, data from the 2012 ANES, 95 percent confidence intervals.

For racial prejudice, Latinos are overall closer to whites than to blacks, again similar to 2008 (figure 4). Across both measures, and the supplementary racial resentment measure, the positions of both native-born and foreign-born Latinos are statistically distinguishable from those of blacks (p < 0.0001), but statistically indistinguishable from those of whites.

Figure 4.

Prejudice against Blacks in 2012 by Race/Ethnicity. Data from the 2012 ANES, 95 percent confidence intervals.

Next, we consider the relationship between racial prejudice and opinion, estimating models that rely on the same set of control variables as the 2008 models. Once again, we rely on multiple imputation to deal with listwise deletion. ¹²

Regarding opinions about policies explicitly designed to aid blacks, results again closely reflect 2008 patterns. Among US-born Latinos, foreign-born Latinos, and whites, negative stereotypes and denial of sympathy for blacks are both negatively associated with policies intended to help blacks. Indeed, not only do the 2012 results reinforce our earlier conclusions about native-born Latinos and whites, but also among foreign-born Latinos, even stronger associations emerge between racial prejudice and explicitly racial policies in 2012 than in 2008. With respect to implicitly racial policies—the death penalty and welfare—the 2008 data pointed to a weaker relationship between public opinion on these implicitly racial policies and prejudice (table 2). The 2012 results reinforce these conclusions (table 3), again suggesting that the relationship between measures of racial prejudice and ostensibly nonracial policies is less clear than the relationship between measures of racial prejudice and explicitly racial policies.

Table 3.

Racial Prejudice and Policy Opinion, by Race/Ethnicity (2012 ANES)

	Explicit racial policies						Implicit racial politics and vote choice
	Latinos (US-born)
	Aff. action		Aid to blacks		Fair jobs		Death penalty		Welfare		Obama 1		Obama 2
	N = 346		N = 346		N = 346		N = 345		N = 305		N = 413		N = 170
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)
Neg. stereo.	–0.03	(0.14)	–0.12	(0.13)	–0.39**	(0.14)	0.03	(0.15)	–1.06*	(0.43)	0.13	(0.63)	1.18	(0.89)
Denial/Symp	–0.45**	(0.10)	–0.20*	(0.09)	–0.27*	(0.11)	0.26*	(0.12)	–0.47	(0.34)	–0.97	(0.61)	–1.79*	(0.69)
Cons.	0.56**	(0.17)	0.51**	(0.16)	0.49*	(0.19)	0.46*	(0.20)	a	b	2.43**	(0.84)	4.77**	(1.20)
F	4.36		4.45		13.56		1.80		5.73		13.99		7.55
	Latinos (foreign-born)
	N = 125		N = 125		N = 125		N = 125		N = 100		N = 201		–	–
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	–	–
Neg stereo.	–0.14	(0.21)	–0.30#	(0.17)	–0.43*	(0.20)	0.46*	(0.20)	1.07	(0.80)	1.45	(1.09)	–	–
Denial/Symp	–0.37*	(0.16)	–0.39	(0.15)	–0.40**	(0.14)	–0.14	(0.18)	–2.58**	(0.72)	–0.42	(0.84)	–	–
Cons.	0.85**	(0.29)	0.85**	(0.30)	1.06**	(0.31)	0.33	(0.34)	a	b	2.77*	(1.37)	–	–
F	1.72		5.58		6.92		1.17		4.98		6.82		–	–
	Whites
	Aff. action		Aid to blacks		Fair jobs		Death penalty		Welfare		Obama 1		Obama 2
	N = 917		N = 917		N = 917		N = 917		N = 803		N = 2,591		N = 576
	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)	b	(SE)
Neg. stereo.	–0.14*	(0.06)	–0.11*	(0.05)	–0.14#	(0.08)	0.20**	(0.07)	–0.40	(0.28)	–0.58*	(0.25)	–1.59**	(0.45)
Denial/Symp	–0.22**	(0.05)	–0.21**	(0.05)	–0.30**	(0.07)	0.15*	(0.06)	–0.11	(0.23)	0.07	(0.25)	0.09	(0.46)
Cons.	0.45**	(0.08)	0.54**	(0.08)	0.52**	(0.10)	0.62**	(0.06)	a	b	0.96*	(0.39)	1.47*	(0.62)
F	11.76		19.55		50.59		12.87		15.41		67.71		20.96

**p < 0.01; *p < 0.05; #p < 0.1 (two-tailed); ordinary least squares regression coefficients (Affirmative action, Aid to blacks, Fair jobs, Death penalty), ordered probit (Welfare) and logit (Vote choice: Obama 1, 2). Standard errors are in parentheses. Coefficients on the following additional control variables are suppressed: party identification, limited government, egalitarianism, age, gender, and education (see online appendix 5 and 7 for full coefficients). The data set is the 2012 ANES time-series survey, FTF interviews only; the analyses are weighted for national representativeness. Multiple imputation (m = 100) is used to deal with listwise deletion where results rely on ordinary least squares, and results without multiple imputation are shown in online appendix 6. Alternative approaches to imputing missing values are used where variables are categorical (Welfare), leading to a different sample size. Due to sample size constraints, two Vote choice models are used. The first model uses codes voting for Obama as 1 and Romney as 0, excludes non-voters, but deals with sample size issues by merging the FTF and web interviews. The second uses a dependent variable that includes non-voters in the 0 category to deal with the sample-size issue, but uses only FTF interviews. A third approach to the vote choice variable, which excludes non-voters and uses FTF interviews, can only be used with US-born Latinos and whites to ensure a sufficient sample size; the results of this estimation are included in the online appendix. The variables Fair jobs and Welfare are measured differently in 2012 than in 2008, which is why the Welfare model in table 3 is estimated using ordered probit, while the model in table 2 is not.

^a,bCut-points for the ordered probit: US-born Latinos, (1) –2.54 (0.62), (2) –1.30 (0.59); foreign-born Latinos (1) –3.51(1.09), (2) –1.92 (1.07); whites (1) –0.34 (0.35), (2) 1.18 (0.34).

Finally, regarding vote choice, the 2012 measure leads to a methodological challenge. A decline in reported turnout leaves fewer respondents in the 2012 vote choice models than in the 2008 vote choice models, especially with respect to foreign-born Latinos. Without adjustments, the low number of foreign-born Latino respondents threatens the validity of the analysis (King 1998). We therefore estimate a second model that merges the web and FTF samples in the 2012 ANES. Finally, since our sample of US-born Latinos and whites is large enough to ensure valid estimation, we also estimate models that use only FTF data and the traditional vote choice measure. These results are presented in table 3, and show 2012 results similar to those in 2008, although in 2012 the results are somewhat stronger for non-Hispanic whites than Latinos.

To ensure robustness, we also estimate a number of alternative specifications, including models without multiple imputation and models that exclude all controls (online appendix 6). Across these different specifications, racial prejudice in 2012 is much like in 2008: it is negatively associated with support for policies explicitly designed to aid blacks among Latinos; again, weaker relationships are observed between racial prejudice and support for implicitly racial policies. Finally, as discussed above, all of these findings are consistent (with the exception of vote choice) if the racial resentment scale is used as the measure of prejudice.

Latinos and Whites: A Final Comparison

The findings presented so far suggest that prejudice has important consequences for both Latinos and non-Hispanic whites. This finding may appear puzzling—if prejudice against blacks is as widespread and consequential among Latinos as among whites, why do Latinos appear to be more “pro-black” in their policy positions and electoral behavior? To shed some light on the divide between Latinos and whites, we follow the procedure outlined in Kinder and Winter (2001), which rests on a comparison of “the racial divide in raw form with our best guess of what the racial divide would look like under various hypothetical circumstances” (445). This approach allows us to simulate a set of comparisons between Latinos and whites, simulating the divide in opinion if differences between Latinos and whites on a given set of independent variable were to disappear. To ensure robustness, we use a variety of methodological approaches in estimating these simulations, detailed in online appendix 8.

In the first row of table 4, we present the raw divide between Latinos and whites for each policy opinion (and in the vote for Obama in 2008). Each of the remaining rows indicates what the divide would be if all respondent values (both white and Latino) were set to the mean Latino value for each of the following: racial attitudes (stereotypes and sympathy), party identification, principles (limited government and egalitarianism), demographics, and then, finally, all of the above at once.

Table 4.

Explaining the Latino/White Divide in Public Opinion, Electoral Behavior

	Aff. action	Aid to blacks	Fair jobs	Death penalty	Vote Obama
Raw divide	0.121	0.143	0.197	0.127	0.272
Divide after simulating change in:	0.123	0.148	0.219	0.148	0.270
Party identification	0.103	0.128	0.177	0.128	0.173
Principles	0.108	0.128	0.146	0.141	0.235
Age	0.120	0.149	0.179	0.143	0.241
Income	0.119	0.143	0.192	0.142	0.269
Education	0.116	0.162	0.187	0.180	0.244
Net divide	0.077	0.104	0.142	0.131	0.066

Source.—2008 American National Election Studies. Simulations calculated using observed values for independent variables and coefficients from online appendix 8, with the independent variable of interest (e.g., party identification) set to the Latino mean value for all respondents. The net divide is the remaining racial divide in opinion after all simulations are conducted at once.

While a complete accounting of the Latino/white divide is beyond the scope of this manuscript, the results suggest that if differences in racial prejudice between Latinos and whites were eliminated, the Latino/white divide would hardly be affected at all (compare the top two rows of table 4). In contrast, if differences in partisanship or principles were eliminated, the Latino/white divide would decrease substantially. The Latino/white divide appears to result in no small part from the fact that Latinos are more Democratic, less opposed to big government, and somewhat more egalitarian than whites (Bowler and Segura 2012).

For example, in 2008 the mean white vote for Obama was 27.2 percentage points lower than the mean Latino vote. If whites had the exact same racial attitudes as Latinos, this divide would be 27.0 percentage points—a minimal change. But if whites were also just as Democratic as Latinos, just as open to big government, just as egalitarian, and (less importantly) demographically identical as well, they would have been only slightly less likely to vote for Obama than Latinos were: the divide would diminish to 6.57 percentage points. This pattern is similar, albeit attenuated, for most of the policy opinions as well. Partisanship and principles explain a substantial proportion of the Latino/white divide on opinion and electoral behavior, but racial prejudice does not.

Conclusion

As Telles, Sawyer, and Rivera-Salgado (2011) point out, research on race in America “has been dominated by a binary hierarchical model of race relations between whites and blacks” (16). Although we know quite a bit about the prevalence and impact of anti-black prejudice among whites, we know far less about the political consequences of anti-black prejudice among Latinos. This leaves unanswered the following question: How will the rapid growth among racial minority populations (Lee 2008) affect public opinion about policies intended to aid blacks and electoral support for black candidates?

In analyzing the attitudes of Latinos, an often-overlooked group in scholarship examining racial attitudes, we find that the level of support for policies intended to benefit blacks, along with the level of support for the nation’s most prominent black candidate in American history, Barack Obama, is higher among Latinos than among whites. This suggests that as Latinos constitute an increasing share of the population, both public support for policies intended to benefit blacks and public support for black candidates may increase as well. On the other hand, the level of Latino support for such policies falls well short of the level of support among blacks. Furthermore, Latinos hold prejudicial attitudes toward blacks to approximately the same extent as whites. Finally, at least among Latinos born in the United States, the effect of prejudice against blacks on policy opinion is roughly equivalent to its effect among whites.

This relationship between racial attitudes and public opinion is important. Although previous research has found evidence of animosity between Latinos and blacks, there has been less empirical evidence of the political relevance of this animosity (Bowler and Segura 2012, 274). Through analyses of two separate, nationally representative data sets and a wide variety of dependent variables, our research uncovers important, robust associations between anti-black prejudice and Latino policy opinion.

Interestingly, associations between racial attitudes and public opinion appeared to be attenuated among Latinos born outside the United States. We hypothesized this to be the case as a general matter but also postulated one exception: opinion about policies explicitly associated with blacks. Our argument was based on the assumption that the connections between policy implicitly associated with blacks would be harder to draw for those who had spent less time in the United States. However, we found that even with those policies explicitly associated with blacks, associations with prejudice often fell short of statistical significance. One possible explanation is that the sample size for foreign-born Latinos was significantly lower than the sample size for native-born Latinos; after all, the coefficients for foreign-born Latinos were typically in the expected direction and of comparable magnitude to those of US-born Latinos but were more likely to fall short of statistical significance. That said, we should also note that the fit of the models was significantly worse for this subpopulation. Given current immigration patterns and research on the importance of the acculturation process (e.g., Branton 2007), future research should continue to examine the possibility of differences between Latinos born inside and outside the United States.

Indeed, research is only beginning to uncover the extent and consequences of Latino prejudice against blacks at the national level; future research may also consider the possibility that social desirability pressures might be less pronounced among Latinos—especially for those born outside the United States—than for whites. Much work remains to be done: in the meantime, it appears that even in the midst of rapid demographic changes, the pernicious effects of prejudice against blacks on the policy opinions and the electoral behavior of the American public are unlikely to diminish. Furthermore, given key differences in partisanship and principles between Latinos and whites, continuing growth in the Latino population will likely result in an American public with more liberal issue preferences and a greater likelihood of voting for Democratic candidates.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data are freely available online at http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/.

Appendix. Description of 2008 ANES and 2012 ANES

2008 ANES

According to the User’s Guide to the 2008 American National Election Studies Time Series Survey, the survey relied on a five-stage sampling design of the following target population: “The target population for the ANES 2008 Time Series Study constitutes English-speaking or Spanish-speaking US citizens of voting age residing in the 48 coterminous United States and the District of Columbia.” The design included differential sampling rates by racial and ethnic groups to include oversamples of Latinos and African Americans. Furthermore, “[a] total of 2,323 pre-election and 2,102 post-election interviews were successfully completed during the field period, including 512 Latino interviews and 577 interviews by African American respondents.”

Interviews were conducted in either English or Spanish, depending on the respondent’s preference.

The sampling frame is described as follows: “The sampling frame for the ANES 2008 Time Series Study comprised residential mailing lists supplemented with a frame-linking procedure that added to the frame any households not included on the lists. It was estimated that this combined sampling frame would account for approximately 98 percent of the households in the United States.”

Respondents were interviewed during the two months preceding the November election and then re-interviewed during the two months following the election.

In the 2008 pre-election survey, the ANES AAPOR RR1 was 59.5 percent, AAPOR RR3 was 63.7 percent, and AAPOR RR5 was 78.2 percent. In the post-election survey, AAPOR RR1 was 53.9 percent, AAPOR RR3 was 57.7 percent, and 70.8 percent.

For more information, see http://electionstudies.org/studypages/2008prepost/2008prepost_UsersGuide.pdf.

2012 ANES

The 2012 ANES is composed of two samples: a face-to-face sample and an Internet sample. According to the User’s Guide and Codebook for the ANES 2012 Time Series Study, “The target population for the two samples is US citizens age 18 or older. Design criteria also included having sufficient numbers of black and Hispanic respondents to enable analysis of those subgroups.”

Respondents were interviewed during the two months preceding the November election and then re-interviewed during the two months following the election.

For the 2012 ANES, the FTF AAPOR RR1 is 38 percent and the FTF AAPOR RR3 is 49 percent. The web response rate reported by the ANES is 2 percent.

For the face-to-face sample, interviews were conducted in either English or Spanish, depending on the respondent’s preference (as in 2008). For the Internet sample, interviews were conducted in English.

Sampling frame: Face-to-face sample

According to the User’s Guide and Codebook for the ANES 2012 Time Series Study, “The first stage of sampling consisted of stratifying the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia into nine regions corresponding to census divisions. Alaska and Hawaii were excluded as a cost-saving measure, and their small populations make this exclusion a fairly small source of bias. These census divisions constitute the study’s strata. Within each region, a number of census tracts was then randomly selected. The number of tracts selected per region was proportional to the region’s proportion of the US adult population. For example, the New England region is home to about 5 percent of the US adult population, so we drew five percent of the 125 tracts from New England, amounting to six tracts. Within each region, tracts were selected with “probability proportional to size,” meaning that tracts with larger populations had a higher probability of selection. This is a desirable method because it preserves similar selection probabilities for individuals all over the country. The second stage of sampling consisted of the random selection of residential addresses within each tract. The sampling frame—that is, the list of every possible address from which we randomly drew our sample of addresses—consisted of the Delivery Sequence File (DSF) used by the United States Postal Service for the residential delivery of mail.”

Sampling frame: Internet sample

According to the User’s Guide and Codebook for the ANES 2012 Time Series Study, “Internet respondents were members of the GfK (formerly Knowledge Networks) KnowledgePanel. The KnowledgePanel is a large online panel of survey respondents who are invited to complete surveys several times each month on a variety of topics for a variety of investigators. Panelists are recruited using two probability sampling methods: address-based sampling (ABS) and random-digit dialing (RDD). Prospective panelists who do not have Internet access at the time of recruitment are furnished with free Internet service and free hardware to connect to the Internet. A sample of KnowledgePanelists selected from the KnowledgePanel to receive invitations to take the ANES Time Series survey. This sample was limited to US citizens who would be at least 18 years old by Election Day, November 6, 2012, and was limited to one person per household.” The RDD sampling takes place as follows: “Knowledge Networks utilizes list-assisted RDD sampling techniques based on a sample frame of the US residential landline telephone universe…Additionally, an oversample is conducted among a stratum telephone exchanges that have high concentrations of African American and Hispanic households based on census data.” The ABS sampling takes place as follows: “ABS involves probability-based sampling of addresses from the US Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File. Randomly sampled addresses are invited to join KnowledgePanel through a series of mailings and in some cases telephone follow-up calls to non-responders…”

For more information, see http://electionstudies.org/studypages/anes_timeseries_2012/anes_timeseries_2012_userguidecodebook.pdf.

Question Wording

Affirmative action for blacks:

2008: What about your opinion—are you FOR or AGAINST preferential hiring and promotion of blacks? Do you favor preference in hiring and promotion STRONGLY or NOT STRONGLY?/Do you oppose preference in hiring and promotion STRONGLY or NOT STRONGLY? (ANES: V085157, V085157a, V085157b, “affirmative action”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where 0 means strongly against and 1 means strongly in support.

2012: What about your opinion —are you FOR or AGAINST preferential hiring and promotion of blacks? Do you favor preference in hiring and promotion STRONGLY or NOT STRONGLY?/Do you oppose preference in hiring and promotion STRONGLY or NOT STRONGLY? (ANES: aapost_hire, aapost_hirefav, aapost_hireopp)

Coded: 0 to 1, where 0 means strongly against and 1 means strongly support.

Government assistance to blacks:

2008: Where would you place YOURSELF on this scale, or haven’t you thought much about this? 1. Govt should help blacks 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Blacks should help themselves (ANES: V083137, “aid to blacks”)

Coded: 0 to 1, with above scale reversed such that 0 means that blacks should help themselves and 1 means that government should help the blacks.

2012: Where would you place YOURSELF on this scale, or haven’t you thought much about this? 1. Govt should help blacks 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Blacks should help themselves (ANES: aidblack_self, “aid to blacks”)

Coded: 0 to 1, with above scale reversed such that 0 means that blacks should help themselves, and 1 means that government should help blacks.

Fair treatment in jobs for blacks:

2008: How do you feel? Should the government in Washington see to it that black people get fair treatment in jobs OR is this not the federal government’s business? (ANES: V085079a, branched from V085079, “fair jobs”)

Coded: 0 or 1, where 0 means that it is not the federal government’s business and 1 means that it is the government’s responsibility to “see to it that black people get fair treatment in jobs.”

2012: Should the government in Washington see to it that black people get fair treatment in jobs or is this not the federal government’s business? Do you feel strongly or not strongly that this is/is not the federal government’s business? (ANES: fairjob_opin, fairjob_yes, fairjobs_no, there is no first branching question in 2012, “fair jobs”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where 0 means that it is not the federal government’s business and 1 means that it is the government’s responsibility to “see to it that black people get fair treatment in jobs.”

Death penalty:

2008: Do you FAVOR or OPPOSE the death penalty for persons convicted of murder? Do you favor the death penalty for persons convicted of murder STRONGLY or NOT STRONGLY?/Do you oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder STRONGLY or NOT STRONGLY? (ANES: V083163, V083163a, “death penalty”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where 0 means the respondent strongly opposes the death penalty and 1 means respondent strongly supports the death penalty.

2012: Do you favor or oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder? Do you favor the death penalty for persons convicted of murder strongly or not strongly?/Do you oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder strongly or not strongly? (ANES: penalty_favdpen, penalty_dpenstr, “death penalty”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where 0 means the respondent strongly opposes the death penalty and 1 means respondent strongly supports the death penalty.

Welfare:

2008: What about WELFARE PROGRAMS? Should federal spending on welfare programs be INCREASED, DECREASED, or kept ABOUT THE SAME? Should it be increased A GREAT DEAL, A MODERATE AMOUNT, or A LITTLE?/Should it be decreased A GREAT DEAL, A MODERATE AMOUNT, or A LITTLE? (ANES: V083145, V083145a, “welfare”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where 0 means welfare should be decreased a great deal and 1 means welfare spending should be increased a great deal.

2012: WELFARE PROGRAMS (Should federal spending be INCREASED, DECREASED, or kept [ABOUT THE SAME/THE SAME]?) (ANES: fedspend_welfare, “welfare”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where 1 means spending should be increased and 0 means spending should be decreased.

Vote choice:

2008: Who did you vote for? (ANES: V085044a, voters, and V085046a, non-voters, “vote Obama”)

Coded: 0 or 1, where 1 means voted for Obama (or supports Obama for models that rely on non-voters), 0 means did not vote (or support) Obama.

2012: Who did you vote for? (ANES: presvote2012_x)

Coded: 0 or 1, where 1 means voted for Obama.

Prejudice measures:

Stereotype index

2008: [lazy/intelligent] Where would you rate WHITES on this scale? Where would you rate BLACKS on this scale? (ANES: 083208b, V083207b, V083207a, V083208a, “negative stereotypes”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where higher values mean the respondent has more negative stereotypes of blacks.

2012: [lazy/intelligent] Where would you rate WHITES in general on this scale? Where would you rate BLACKS on this scale? (ANES: stype_intwhite, stype_intblack, stype_hwkwhite, stype_hwkblack, “negative stereotypes”)

Coded: 0 to 1, where higher values mean the respondent has more negative stereotypes of blacks.

Sympathy measure:

2008: How often have you felt sympathy for blacks? VERY often, FAIRLY often, NOT TOO often, or NEVER? (ANES: V085115, “denial of sympathy”)

Coded: 0 to 1, reversed, where 1 means a respondent never feels sympathy.

2012: How often have you felt sympathy for blacks? [ALWAYS, MOST OF THE TIME, ABOUT HALF THE TIME, SOME OF THE TIME, or NEVER/NEVER, SOME OF THE TIME, ABOUT HALF THE TIME, MOST OF THE TIME, or ALWAYS] (ANES: racecasi_sympblacks, “denial of sympathy”)

Coded: 0 to 1, reversed, where 1 means a respondent never feels sympathy.

Racial resentment:

2008: Index created from four questions: Do you [AGREE STRONGLY, AGREE SOMEWHAT, NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE, DISAGREE SOMEWHAT, or DISAGREE STRONGLY/DISAGREE STRONGLY, DISAGREE SOMEWHAT, NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE, AGREE SOMEWHAT, or AGREE STRONGLY] with this statement? (1) Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors; (2) Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class; (3) Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve; (4) It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites. (ANES: V085143, V085144, V085145, V085146, “racial resentment”)

Coded: averaged, and scaled 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest level of racial resentment.

2012: Index created from four questions: Do you [AGREE STRONGLY, AGREE SOMEWHAT, NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE, DISAGREE SOMEWHAT, or DISAGREE STRONGLY/DISAGREE STRONGLY, DISAGREE SOMEWHAT, NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE, AGREE SOMEWHAT, or AGREE STRONGLY] with this statement? (1) Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors; (2) Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class; (3) Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve; (4) It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites. (ANES: resent_workway, resent_slavery, resent_deserve, resent_try, “racial resentment”)

Coded: averaged, and scaled 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest level of racial resentment.

Party identification:

2008: Created from two branched questions: “Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a [DEMOCRAT, a REPUBLICAN/a REPUBLICAN, a DEMOCRAT], an INDEPENDENT, or what?” [If R considers self a Democrat/Republican:] “Would you call yourself a STRONG Democrat or a NOT VERY STRONG Democrat/Would you call yourself a STRONG Republican or a NOT VERY STRONG Republican?” If R’s Party Identification is Independent, No Preference, Other, DK: “Do you think of yourself as CLOSER to the Republican Party or to the Democratic party?”

Coded: standard seven-point scale generated from the two branching questions, and scaled 0 to 1, where 1 is strong Republican.

2012: Created from two branched questions: “Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a [DEMOCRAT, a REPUBLICAN/a REPUBLICAN, a DEMOCRAT], an INDEPENDENT, or what?” [If R considers self a Democrat/Republican:] “Would you call yourself a STRONG Democrat or a NOT VERY STRONG Democrat/Would you call yourself a STRONG Republican or a NOT VERY STRONG Republican?” If R’s Party Identification is Independent, No Preference, Other, DK: “Do you think of yourself as CLOSER to the Republican Party or to the Democratic party?”

Coded: standard seven-point scale generated from the two branching questions, and scaled 0 to 1, where 1 is strong Republican.

Limited government:

2008: Index created from three questions: [Introduction] “Next, I am going to ask you to choose which of two statements I read comes closer to your own opinion. You might agree to some extent with both, but we want to know which one is closer to your own views.”

(1) One, the main reason government has become bigger over the years is because it has gotten involved in things that people should do for themselves; or: two, government has become bigger because the problems we face have become bigger. (2) One, we need a strong government to handle today’s complex economic problems; or two, the free market can handle these problems without government being involved. (3) One, the less government, the better; or two, there are more things that government should be doing?

Coded: averaged, and scaled 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest level of valuing limited government.

2012: Index created from three questions: [Introduction] “Next, I am going to ask you to choose which of two statements I read comes closer to your own opinion. You might agree to some extent with both, but we want to know which one is closer to your own views.”

(1) One, the main reason government has become bigger over the years is because it has gotten involved in things that people should do for themselves; or: two, government has become bigger because the problems we face have become bigger. (2) One, we need a strong government to handle today’s complex economic problems; or two, the free market can handle these problems without government being involved. (3) One, the less government, the better; or two, there are more things that government should be doing?

Coded: averaged, and scaled 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest level of valuing limited government.

Egalitarianism:

2008: Index created from six questions: [Introduction] “I am going to read several more statements. After each one, I would like you to tell me how strongly you agree or disagree. The first statement is:” (1) Our society should do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. (2) We have gone too far in pushing equal rights in this country. (3) One of the big problems in this country is that we don’t give everyone an equal chance. (4) This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are. (5) It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others. (6) If people were treated more equally in this country, we would have many fewer problems.

Coded: averaged, and scaled 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest level of egalitarianism.

Demographic variables (question wording included where 2008 and 2012 deviate):

Income:

2008: “Please look at the booklet and tell me the letter of the income group that includes the income of all members of your family living here in 2007 before taxes. This figure should include salaries, wages, pensions, dividends, interest, and all other income.”

2012: “The next question is about [the total income of all the members of your family living here/your total income] in 2011, before taxes. This figure should include income from all sources, including salaries, wages, pensions, Social Security, dividends, interest, and all other income. What was [the total income in 2011 of all your family members living here/your total income in 2011]?”

Education:

2008: Did you get a high school diploma or pass a high school equivalency test?

[If yes]

What is the highest degree that you have earned?

2012: What is the highest level of school you have completed or the highest degree you have received?

Race:

2008: “What racial or ethnic group or groups best describes you?”

2012: “I am going to read you a list of five race categories. Please choose one or more races that you consider yourself to be:”