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From "the Blacks" to Trump's African Americans : investigating the socioeconomic factors behind young Black men's support for Donald Trump Pottinger, Amara

Abstract

Support for the populist right has been increasing in industrialized democracies in recent years, and surprisingly, among voters belonging to various marginalized demographics. In this thesis, I examine support for right-wing populist Donald Trump amongst Black American men. First, I find the increase in Black support of Trump is concentrated amongst the youngest Black male voters. Next, I investigate whether factors established to contribute to Trump support in the broader population are also present in higher levels among young Black men as compared to older Black men. Using data from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study, I focus on the presence of three established predictors of Trump support: hostile sexism, anti-immigrant attitudes, and economic precarity. Of the predictors examined, using regression analysis, I find that hostile sexism is the most significant predictor of Trump support amongst young Black men, with level of educational attainment having little to no effect on predicted level of Trump support. My findings suggest the significance of attitudes towards gender roles and women both in young Black men’s perceptions of status threat, and in their breaking from Black American group-norms and deciding to electorally support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International