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作者

Melody Crowder-Meyer, Shana Kushner Gadarian, Jessica Trounstine

来源

URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW,Vol.56,Issue1,P.154–187

语言

英文

关键字

local elections, race, ethnicity, and politics, gender and politics, experimental research, American politics, political behavior

作者单位

1Davidson College, Davidson, NC, USA;2Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA;3University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA

摘要

Many U.S. elections provide voters with precious little information about candidates on the ballot. In local contests, party labels are often absent. In primary elections, party labels are not useful. Indeed, much of the time, voters have only the name of the candidate to go by. In these contexts, how do voters make decisions? Using several experiments, we find that voters use candidates’ race, ethnicity, and gender as cues for whom to support—penalizing candidates of color and benefiting women. But we also demonstrate that providing even a small amount of information to voters—such as candidate occupation—virtually erases the effects of candidate demographics on voter behavior, even among voters with high levels of racial and gender prejudice.