At Whose Table?: Examining Heterogeneous Support for US Transgender Candidates

• In Event: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Elections

Abstract

While recent research has examined hypothetical ballot box penalties related to nuanced candidate identities, less is known about who penalizes and why this penalty exists. We draw on recent work, including our own (Howard and Wehde 2023), to examine heterogenous effects of transgender identities on vote choice in survey experiments. We highlight which sub-groups of the US population are particularly attentive, negatively and positively, to concepts of intersectionality and transmisogyny in our survey experiment. To do so, we fielded a conjoint survey experiment on a quota-based US sample of over 2000 respondents. We emphasize candidate gender identity and sexual orientations, increasing the nuance of previous research in this area. Preliminary results suggest education and religion variables play an important role in explaining ballot-box penalties for trans-women and trans-men. We also examine some mechanisms such as electability concerns and prejudice through which these heterogenous treatment effects and identity penalties emerge. In addition to our quantitative survey data, we draw on qualitative debriefing questions to investigate those respondents for whom transgender identities were especially relevant to their voting decisions. We argue that increasing understanding of public responses to intersectional identities could lead to improved attitudinal and representational outcomes.

Author

• Wesley Wehde, Texas Tech University