Multiraciality and racialized politics in the United States

Abstract

In the United States, political ideology and political party affiliation provide important indicators of multiracial individuals’ place in the historic racial order. I ask the following research question: Do multiracials lean White or non-White in their political ideologies and political party affiliations? I argue that an individual’s racial identity shapes their political alignments, and multiracials’ alignments reveal how they affect racialized politics. I reference classic assimilation, minority trumping, and selection as theoretical frameworks that may indicate how multiracials are positioned in the contemporary racial order. Using the American National Election Study Time Series Studies (ANES 2008, 2012, 2016), I conduct a quantitative analysis (i.e. OLS regression models and multinomial logit models) and examine the relationship between respondents’ multiracial self-identification and political ideology and political party affiliation. Multiracials, who identify as White and non–White, experience an in-between effect, compared to their monoracial counterparts.