[EL] Racially polarized voting in the U.S.

[Michael McDonald]

In advance of this week's MPSA conference I've uploaded a new version of my
paper with UF PhD candidate Brian Amos on racially polarized voting in the
U.S. We've added two components that may be of interest to some on the
listserve:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2546384

First, in our previous version, we estimated support for Obama in 2008 using
ecological inference methods for five (non-Hispanic) census racial
categories White, Black, Native American, Asian-American, and Pacific
Islander) and Hispanics. In this iteration, we use American Community Survey
Data to further explore patterns among Hispanic groups (Cuban, Puerto Rican,
Mexican-American, Dominican, and other Hispanic groups). These estimates
will likely be of interest to some, as well as a new map that plots precinct
level non-Hispanic White support for Obama nationwide (the map is eye candy
for political junkies).

Second, in response from helpful comments by Rick and Justin about the
suitability of using racial polarization as a component of an updated Sec. 4
coverage formula, we aggregate the precinct level non-Hispanic White Obama
support estimates into congressional districts and find that these estimates
predict NAACP legislative support scores, primarily among Democratic House
members, even when controlling for first and second NOMINATE dimensions
(which is remarkable considering these together explain about 80% of roll
call votes) along with other controls. This technique can be applied to any
level of geography: states, urban/rural regions, state legislative
districts, etc. Thus, greater degrees of White racial polarization within
districts are associated with representatives opposing policies favored by
Blacks.

The paper is still a work in progress and comments are welcome.

============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
University of Florida
Department of Political Science
234 Anderson Hall
P.O. Box 117325
Gainesville, FL 32611

phone:   352-273-2371 (office)
e-mail:  dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com                
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