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Recent literature largely dismisses the notion that voters engage in direct bias against women based on sex alone. Making a distinction between sex and gender, our theoretical expectations predict that female candidates who violate gender norms for marriage and motherhood will receive lower candidate evaluations, particularly so among voters who hold conservative beliefs about the proper role of women. We use a survey experiment to estimate the direct and conditional effects of gender traits and gender role beliefs on evaluations. Our results support the proposition that candidate traits, such as marital and parental status, can prime gender beliefs in the evaluative process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research demonstrates that competition over resources can have an important influence on minority political behavior. To date, however, the effects of these local conditions on Latino political behavior have gone largely unexamined. Employing a most similar case study design to overcome the lack of data on intragroup attitudes and political behavior nationally, we examine the voting behavior of Cubans and non-Cuban Hispanics in two Florida counties. The group position thesis holds that status inequalities and perceived discrimination yield out-group hostilities that can influence political behavior. In Miami, where Cubans are dominant, we expect non-Cuban Latinos to report greater pan-Latino competition and that anti-Cuban attitudes will influence non-Cuban Hispanic voting. In Tampa, where non-Cuban Latinos live in communities where Cubans are not dominant, we expect lower levels of perceived competition and Cuban-related attitudes to be inconsequential to the vote. The results confirm that power relations in the local arena constitute an important influence on the political behavior of Latino immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examine the influence of “battleground” designation by presidential campaign strategists on the political activation and involvement of resource poor voters, particularly those in lower income brackets. We hypothesize that increased exposure to campaign stimuli may provide lower income voters in the contested states with an appreciable advantage over those in the “blackout” states by underwriting the costs associated with becoming engaged. Our findings show that the condition of living on contested electoral terrain does have a positive impact on the political interest and engagement levels of lower income voters. The results reinforce the importance of the political campaign as an instrument of democracy. Modern campaign strategies can diversify the electorate in meaningful ways, but the influence of the campaign is also limited by the narrow geographic targeting of party resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of urban immigration and White flight over the past three decades, the demography of U.S. cities has changed rather dramatically; approximately one-half of the largest hundred cities are now composed of minority majorities. Many urban scholars expected these demographic shifts to enhance the prospects for minority electoral alliances. In reality, however, few such alliances have emerged. This paper looks to explore the barriers to effective coalition building between native-born African Americans and their immigrant counterparts. In the first half of the paper, I explore the psychological barriers to mass coalitions, focusing on the negative stereotypes and perceived zero-sum conflict that exist between native-born African Americans and Latino immigrants. The second half of the paper argues that material and symbolic incentives fuel ongoing competition between Blacks and Latinos in the political sphere. The paper concludes with a discussion of how immigrant-induced diversity coupled with existing racial hierarchies work against future Black empowerment. Even when changing urban demography makes Whites a numerical minority, White voters often retain their status as urban power players through their ability to divide minority voters at the polls. Divisive electoral strategies that offer political rewards to one group at the expense of others threaten Black incorporation in the urban arena. Unless minority leadership changes the incentive structure embedded in the traditional modes of municipal governance, Whites will persist in their economic dominance, while disadvantaged immigrants and Blacks will continue to make political choices that yield small, short-term rewards at the expense of greater social and economic justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender differences in political behavior are a source of ongoing interest for political pundits, campaign advisors, and students of American politics. In a closely divided nation, even small shifts in the political choices of men and women can have significant electoral consequences. In politics, the gender gap refers to male-female differences in party identification and voting behavior. As a practical matter, the contemporary gender gap (with women more aligned with the Democratic Party) emerged in 1964 with the election of Lyndon B. Johnson. The gender divide has grown incrementally over time, hitting a contemporary high of 14 percentage points in 1996 (see Figure 1). Since then, the size of the political difference between men and women has declined somewhat; the 2004 gender gap in party identification and voting fell to 9.5 and 7 points, respectively. The 2004 vote gap was half of what it was at its apex in 1996, and while one hesitates to make too much of a single point on this larger time series, a sustained contraction of the gender gap could pose rather dire circumstances for the Democratic Party, or, conversely, great fortune for the Republicans. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A large body of scholarly literature points to the growing influence of religious devotion on U.S. partisanship. This article attempts to reconcile the growing religious commitment cleavage in the American party system with the commensurate growth in the gender gap. If women are, on average, more religiously devout than men, and if contemporary shifts in partisanship are disproportionately founded on religious and cultural cleavages, then why are women more likely to identify with the Democratic Party? I pose three possible explanations for this apparent paradox: (1) that the influence of religion is only considerable among the most committed; (2) that men and women politicize their religious beliefs in different ways; and (3) that gender differences in opinion on nonreligious issues sustain the partisan gap, over and above the conservative influence of religiosity. Findings from structural equation analyses demonstrate that religious devotion affects the politics of men and women in similar ways. Religious commitment affects partisan choices but does not override the powerful effects of gender. Gender differences in support for the social welfare state and the preeminence of social welfare opinion in the partisan calculus of men and women largely explain the persistence of the gender gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petrocik's theory of issue ownership maintains that candidates use campaigns to strategically emphasize issues on which their parties are perceived as more competent; that, in essence, issue agendas have partisan effects on electoral outcomes. This research reexamines the theory of issue ownership using public opinion data from ten Senate races in 1998. While findings from this research largely support the issue ownership hypothesis, they also point to new insights. In particular, there is evidence that candidate records of innovation and issue attentiveness to opposing party issues can undermine the traditional party basis of the vote. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this paper finds that candidates are able to outflank their opponents on issues typically owned by the opposing party if their personal legislative records warrant it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this article is on mass attitudes and the propensity of blacks and Latinos to build electoral coalitions. The theoretical argument is that perceived commonality between Latinos and African-Americans is essential to constructing mass political alliances. Using recent public opinion data, this research explores the levels of perceived commonality between blacks and Latinos and in particular studies the process by which Latinos come to feel dose to African-Americans. This article tests four main hypotheses: pan-Latino affinity, acculturation, perceived discrimination, and racial identity Findings suggest that pan-Latino affinity is a robust predictor of Latino/black commonality, but that long-term Latino political acculturation, in its current form, is unlikely to result in particularly high levels of closeness to blacks. The conclusion of the article points to the important role that Latino leadership and political organizations play in promoting strong pan-ethnic identities and suggests that the prospects for future coalitions between African-Americans and Latinos rest, in part, on the development of these more inclusive Latino orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academics and political practitioners alike have long concerned themselves with the representativeness of primary electorates. Hoping to moderate the ideological extremity of primary voters, state parties have increasingly adopted more open primary eligibility rules. This article explores the extent to which open and modified-open primaries actually attract a more representative electorate than their closed counterparts. Using state-level exit poll data from 1988 through 2000, we compare the ideological, age, and income representation of primary electorates with general election voters. We find that open primaries result in the ideological convergence of the parties’ primary electorates, although the extent of this convergence is contingent upon the candidate choices within individual election years. Notably, open primaries are responsible for the inclusion of younger participants in both parties’ primaries. While reformed primary structure may weaken party control over the nomination process, it clearly results in more moderate and more representative primary electorates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the U.S. partisan balance over the past decade are often attributed to the enhanced political salience of cultural issues. Yet as white men have continued to become more Republican in recent years, white women increasingly identify with the Democrats. To the extent that cultural issues are influencing this partisan change, men and women must be responding differently to this cultural agenda. Using a pooled ANES data set from 1988 through 2000, I explore the extent to which cultural values are responsible for this gender realignment. Findings suggest that salient cultural issues influence the partisan choices of both men and women, however in somewhat different ways. For women, the issues themselves—reproductive rights, female equality, and legal protection for homosexuals—have become increasingly important determinants of party identification. For men, the influence of cultural conflict on partisanship is argued to be equally pervasive, albeit less direct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes male-female differences in partisanship and presidential voting between 1992 and 1996 to show that the gender gap is a product of the changing partisanship of men in the United States. Two alternative hypotheses about the sources of the gender gap; Attitude hypothesis; Salience hypothesis; Contributions of this study to the existing understanding of the gender gap.

The authors explore the relationship between long-term black empowerment and racial turnout rates in Atlanta (Georgia), Cleveland (Ohio), and Los Angeles (California). Symbolic politics, intergroup competition, and political alienation theories are used to explain interracial differences in political participation in mayoral elections. Strong and durable symbolic effects are evident in all three cases. Black turnout equals or exceeds white turnout during and, in the case of Cleveland, after the period of black empowerment. In Los Angeles, however, the symbolic benefits of black empowerment eventually wane as a result of increasing political alienation among black voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a theoretical framework for the study of local voting behavior. The central argument is that salient group interests often act as political cues in local elections. The extent to which group interests influence electoral outcomes and overshadow other more traditional political cues, such as partisanship, is fundamentally related to the political context and the degree of group conflict. Analyzing public opinion surveys from three mayoral elections — New York (1989), New York (1993), and Los Angeles (1993) — this study finds that heightened levels of group conflict correspond with racially motivated voting in all three cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within contemporary political science, local elections are the perennial bridesmaids of behavioral research. While municipal contests are more numerous than any other type of election, academic interest in the factors that motivate local participation and voting behavior pales in comparison to the attention given to national politics. Case studies of individual elections in a small subset of larger American cities do exist, but within the local politics literature, few studies argue for a general theory of local voting behavior (but see Kaufmann 2004; Oliver and Ha 2007). Even in those cases that do, insufficient data exist to rigorously test or replicate these results on a large scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]