White Democrats’ Growing Support for Black Politicians in the Era of the “Great Awokening”

Anna Caroline Mikkelborg

American Political Science Review, 2025, vol. 119, issue 4, 1902-1920

Abstract: Equitable representation of minority groups is a challenge for democratic government. One way to resolve this dilemma is for majority-group voters to support minority-group candidates, but this support is often elusive. To understand how such inter-group coalitions become possible, this paper investigates the case of white Democratic Americans’ growing support for Black political candidates. I show that as white Democrats’ racial attitudes have liberalized, an increasing number of majority-white districts have elected Black congressional representatives. White Democratic survey respondents have also come to prefer Black candidate profiles, as demonstrated in a meta-analysis of 42 experiments. White Democratic respondents in a series of original conjoint experiments were most likely to prefer Black profiles when they expressed awareness of racial discrimination, low racial resentment, and dislike towards Trump. Additional tests underscore the association between majority-group voters’ concern about racial injustice and their support for minority-group candidates.

Date: 2025
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