Bridges and Walls: How Rising Income Inequality Drives Anti-Immigrant Politics and Republican Realignment

Abstract

Rising economic inequality has coincided with growing political polarization and heightened opposition to immigration in the United States. This paper examines how inequality conditions the relationship between individual economic perceptions, immigration attitudes, and partisan voting behavior. Drawing on theories of relative deprivation and cultural backlash, we argue that inequality amplifies the political salience of anti-immigrant sentiment by shaping how economic and cultural grievances are interpreted and translated into electoral choices. Using pooled multilevel regression analyses of American National Election Studies (ANES) data from 1988 to 2020, we test four hypotheses linking state-level income inequality, prospective financial evaluations, immigration attitudes, and Republican vote choice. We find that higher inequality is associated with more negative views toward immigration, particularly among individuals with pessimistic economic expectations. Moreover, the association between anti-immigrant attitudes and Republican voting is stronger in high-inequality contexts. Together, these findings suggest that inequality operates as a contextual amplifier, strengthening the link between immigration attitudes and partisan behavior.