The Trump Effect Latino: Battleground and Group Conscious Political Behavior During the 2016 Presidential Election

Abstract

In this study we used post-election survey data to measure the 2016 presidential election’s effect on Latino participation and partisanship. The study focuses on two subgroups of the Latino population: Latinos who lived in battleground states during the election, and Latinos who showed higher levels of group consciousness during their survey responses. The events of the 2016 election and previous literature on these two subgroups informed our hypotheses that Latinos in the two subgroups would be more likely to participate and less likely to support Donald Trump or Republican Congressional candidates. To test these hypotheses, we ran logistic and multinomial logistic regressions on participation and partisanship for both subgroups. Our results suggested that in the 2016 election, battleground Latinos were more likely to vote than base state Latinos. Additionally, we found that group conscious Latinos were more likely to participate at higher levels and less likely to support Donald Trump, or other Republican candidates, than non-group conscious Latinos. This information adds to our understanding of Latino identity politics and the effects of political environment on voting behavior.