This chapter traces white attidudinal polarization on issues of race and ethnicity before and after the 2016 election. In 2015, Donald Trump mounted an unconventional presidential campaign. Unlike predecessors from the post-Civil Rights Era, Trump’s campaign rhetoric was littered with overtly xenophobic and racist statements—a strategy that politicians had long thought was likely to backfire on a national stage. Drawing on decades of public opinion data, we demonstrate that whites’ attitudes about immigration and race were profoundly polarized by Trump’s presidential campaign. Specifically, although white Americans entered the 2016 election already somewhat polarized along partisan lines in terms of their racial, ethnic, and immigration attitudes, polarization in these areas widened after 2016. As a result, white Americans’ candidate preferences have become increasingly correlated with their racial, ethnic, and immigration attitudes.

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White Racial Polarization Before and After the Election of Donald Trump

  • Ashley Jardina,
  • Trent Ollerenshaw

摘要

This chapter traces white attidudinal polarization on issues of race and ethnicity before and after the 2016 election. In 2015, Donald Trump mounted an unconventional presidential campaign. Unlike predecessors from the post-Civil Rights Era, Trump’s campaign rhetoric was littered with overtly xenophobic and racist statements—a strategy that politicians had long thought was likely to backfire on a national stage. Drawing on decades of public opinion data, we demonstrate that whites’ attitudes about immigration and race were profoundly polarized by Trump’s presidential campaign. Specifically, although white Americans entered the 2016 election already somewhat polarized along partisan lines in terms of their racial, ethnic, and immigration attitudes, polarization in these areas widened after 2016. As a result, white Americans’ candidate preferences have become increasingly correlated with their racial, ethnic, and immigration attitudes.