Racial Identity and Attitudes among the North American White Working Class

• In Event: Race and Politics in Canada

Abstract

Across the American Midwest, white working-class voters have shifted their electoral support to Donald Trump and the Republican Party. However, directly to the north, white working-class voters across Ontario have remained much more supportive of left-wing parties. To what extent is this comparative divergence in electoral behavior traceable to differences in white racial identity and racial attitudes? This paper utilizes a mixed-methods approach to investigate this question. It analyzes interview evidence from selected case studies in Windsor, Ontario and Macomb County, Michigan; original survey data; and an original conjoint experiment. This paper has several major findings. First, experimental evidence shows that non-white political candidates receive a greater electoral penalty from American white working-class voters. Second, white racial identity and racial resentment have a strong, positive association with right-wing voting in both countries, but the magnitude of this effect is larger for American white working-class voters. Third, qualitative evidence suggests that racial attitudes and racial divisions are more salient in Macomb County relative to Windsor. Finally, while these results are driven in part by the differing actions of right-wing political elites, they also evidently reflect attitudinal differences in the populations. This paper concludes that Canadian scholarship must pay closer attention to how racial attitudes and identity affect voting behavior.

Author

• Lewis Krashinsky, Princeton University