Decoding Racial Messages: Testing the Implicit-Explicit Model on the Immigration Issue

Abstract

Racial appeals have long been recognized as potent campaign tactics that mobilize white voters to the polls. Yet most studies that test the viability of racial appeals use blacks as the target group. However, in an increasingly diversifying society in which political elites now target a variety of other ethnic groups, we must question how the effect of racial appeals may change with these shifts in racial politics. This study uses a unique survey experiment to test the role of racial appeals in the context of an issue understood to target non-black minority groups: immigration. Using Latinos as the target group, this project tests different forms of racial appeals - implicit and explicit - to determine what type of appeal influences white opinion. I find that, unlike prior studies on racial appeals that find implicit appeals trigger resentment against blacks, explicit appeals trigger resentment against Latino immigrants.