Campaign Strategies of Black and Brown Republican Candidates

• In Event: Gender, Intersectionality, and American Party Politics

Abstract

“This is not about identity politics,” Nikki Haley said during her campaign announcement in February 2023. “I don’t believe in that, and I don’t believe in glass ceilings either. I believe in creating a country where anybody can do anything and create their own American dream.” The rise of women and candidates of color who identify as Republicans provides a new opportunity to examine how partisanship intersects with race/ethnicity and gender in messaging strategies. Building upon the deracialization and gender bias literature, we ask: do black and brown candidates strategically adopt and articulate “non-threatening” stances on racial politics, deliberately avoiding discussions of their own race and the race of their constituents? Are black and brown Republican candidates more likely to do this than their Democratic counterparts? Does this vary by gender? And perhaps most importantly, is this strategy successful? We answer these questions with a unique dataset of 2022 Congressional primary candidates’ websites. Our text and content analysis finds distinct campaign strategies, particularly at the intersections of partisanship, race/ethnicity and gender. We discuss the implications of these findings for future analysis.

Author

• Paru Shah, Rutgers University