Demographics and Electoral Support among Latin American Diasporas in the US

• In Event: Latin American Politics and Populism in Diaspora

Abstract

What explains diaspora support for populist presidential candidates? Existing research has focused primarily on candidate-level explanations for support from all diaspora voters without answers about between and within diaspora variation. We posit that more educated diaspora voters will be less likely to support populist candidates while diaspora voters more socialized in host countries with successful populists will be more likely to support populist candidates at home. To test our claims, we use candidate-level data on diaspora voting for 154 candidates from 46 first-round presidential elections in 13 Latin American countries, and time-variant demographic data from individuals born in each of the Latin American countries in our sample and living in the United States from the American Community Survey (ACS). Our results complicate existing findings on candidate-level support with only some diaspora voters reporting less support for populist candidates than domestic voters. Nor do we find that right-wing populists or populist incumbents perform worse among diasporas. On the other hand, more educated diasporas are less likely to support populist candidates, consistent with voting patterns for populist candidates among all Americans. This finding suggests diaspora socialization in host countries is reflected in home country election voting, but through unexpected mechanisms.

Authors

• Konstantin Ash, University of Central Florida

• Anca Turcu, University of Central Florida