Black voters, Latino voters and other voters of color show solidarity at the ballot box

by Efren Perez, University of California, Los Angeles

Shortly before Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential candidate, several national polls and primary results suggested that Donald Trump had alienated one of his most reliable voting blocs—people of color—from the party.

This was the case with polls showing that Trump was expected to win more black votes than any other Republican candidate in modern history. Other polls suggested that more Hispanic voters supported Trump despite his anti-immigrant policies and often racist rhetoric.

Each of these apparent policy shifts occurred at a time during the Democratic primaries when President Biden was losing support among Arab-American voters – another reliable Democratic political bloc.

While Harris' candidacy has excited Democratic voters across the country, she is not immune to the impact of Trump's appeal to voters of color. An August 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 77% of all black voters supported Harris, while 13% supported Trump.

Among black voters under 50, Harris was still ahead with 68 percent approval, but 19 percent supported Trump.

In a presidential election that is expected to be close, mobilizing voters of color in many swing states will again be critical to victory, similar to the 2020 election that Biden won. Biden won in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, the three states that gave him victory in the Electoral College, by a total of fewer than 45,000 votes.

To win in 2024, Harris and Trump must mobilize communities of color who are already inclined to vote for Harris in large numbers – despite the little progress Trump has made in this often fragile political coalition.

Similarity principle

Since 2020, my research lab at UCLA has conducted five nationwide experiments with Black, Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern, and North African voters to examine what psychological factors play a role in the voting decisions of people from these diverse groups.

In addition, we conducted two additional large-scale studies to examine the factors that undermine these shared perspectives.

Our findings suggest that, despite their numerous political and social differences, communities of color are more likely to vote for candidates who support policies that help eliminate racial injustice against all groups, not just their own.

In fact, a close look at several studies of nearly 3,500 adults from across the United States suggests the exact opposite of the poll results showing Trump's gains among voters of color.

Part of the reason for this is the so-called similarity principle, the human tendency to like others who are similar to themselves. Based on this principle, we asked participants in our experiments to read an article about the discrimination that another ethnic group had experienced.

In one study, for example, black adults read about how Latinos were treated as second-class citizens. This was an experience that the black participants could relate to. In another study, Latinos read about how Asian Americans were labeled as “foreigners.” This is an experience that many Latinos share.

These shared social experiences also have a political component.

After reading about other groups, we found that blacks are more supportive of policies that benefit Latino voters, such as expanding rights for illegal Latino immigrants. In turn, Latino voters are more supportive of Black Lives Matter, while Asian Americans, Middle Easterners, and North Africans favor reducing the number of Border Patrol agents and federal spending on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The most important thing is that this solidarity is based on a common identity as people with a different skin color and is independent of whether the individuals are ideologically liberal or conservative.

A solid multi-ethnic coalition

This racial solidarity remains unbroken despite attempts by some politicians to undermine it by stoking divisions within communities of color.

For example, in one experiment we drew attention to issues that can sometimes lead to conflict between different groups, such as immigration, positive discrimination or reparations.

But even worse were the similar forms of discrimination that both groups faced. Both Asians and Latinos were treated as “foreigners,” even though many of their family roots went back several generations. Blacks and Latinos were discriminated against as socially “inferior” groups, even though parts of these populations were making visible socioeconomic progress.

Our findings show how negative experiences can be transformed into a net political gain – a resilient political coalition.

But in the real world, messages designed to foster solidarity among these racially diverse voters must do so without sparking political conflict among them—a divisive tactic that Trump has explicitly used with some success.

In the 2020 election, Trump increased his gains among all minority voting groups compared to 2016, winning one in four voters of color nationwide. Trump won the votes of nearly one in five black men and about a third of the Asian American and Latino electorate.

However, our research shows that solidarity among people of color is deep-rooted, and politicians would do well to exploit this solidarity if they want to win at the ballot box.

Efrén Pérez, Professor of Political Science and Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.