Nathan D. Woods

The Mobilizing Effect of Majority–Minority Districts on Latino Turnout

We inquire whether residence in majority–minority districts raises or lowers turnout among Latinos. We argue that the logic suggesting that majority–minority districts suppress turnout is flawed and hypothesize that the net effect is empowering. Further, we suggest that residing in multiple overlapping majority–minority districts—for state assemblies, senates, and the U.S. House—further enhances turnout. We test our hypotheses using individual-level turnout data for voters in five Southern California counties. Examining three general elections from 1996 to 2000, we demonstrate that residing in a majority-Latino district ultimately has a positive effect on the propensity of Latino voters to turn out, an effect that increases with the number of Latino districts in which the voter resides and is consistent across the individual offices in which a voter might be descriptively represented. In contrast, the probability that non-Hispanic voters turn out decreases as they are subject to increasing layers of majority-Latino districting.

Presidential Approval and the Mixed Blessing of Divided Government

Divided government provides ambiguous and conflicting information about which branch of government to hold accountable for government performance. The implication for presidents, who are easy targets of blame, is that they are less likely to be held accountable for governments failures during periods of divided government because the public has a plausible alternative for affixing responsibility: the U.S. Congress. Because presidents are punished more heavily for negative outcomes than they are rewarded for favorable ones, we argue that a divided government context has the effect of increasing presidential approval relative to periods of unified government. At the individual level, using data from the 1972-1994 National Election Studies we show that divided government increases the probability that respondents approve of a presidents job performance. This effect is even stronger among citizens who are knowledgeable about control of government. Examining approval at the aggregate level from 1949 to 1996, we find further evidence that divided government boosts presidential approval ratings.

Metropolitan Latino Political Behavior: Voter Turnout and Candidate Preference in Los Angeles

ABSTRACT: Most research on Latino voting behavior conclusively finds that as a group, Latinos vote at lower rates than other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. In this article, we argue that given the appropriate circumstances, Latinos should be expected to vote at higher rates than other racial and ethnic groups. In particular, we think the presence of a viable Latino candidate will spur increased Latino turnout and that when Latinos candidates run for office, Latino voters will prefer the co-ethnic candidate. Analyzing precinct level returns from the Los Angeles 2001 mayoral and the 2000 presidential elections we show this may be the case. High-density Latino precincts show higher rates of turnout when Latino candidates are on the ballot, and these same precincts show heightened support for the co-ethnic candidate. In fact, for the first time ever in Los Angeles, the 2001 mayoral election witnessed Latinos voting at the highest rates of any racial or ethnic group in the city.

Controversies in Exit Polling: Implementing a Racially Stratified Homogenous Precinct Approach

I n November 2000, exit poll interviews with voters in Florida indicated that Al Gore won the state. As a result, many television networks declared Gore the winner of Florida, a pivotal state to winning the presidency in 2000. Only a few hours later, the first vote tallies from the Florida Secretary of State’s office revealed that George W. Bush was in fact leading in Florida. After 45 days of recounts and lawsuits, it was clear that the exit polls were wrong; Bush had won the state by the narrowest of margins. As a result of the flawed exit poll1 the media and pollsters scoured and reanalyzed the methodology used in 2000 to prepare and correct for the 2004 presidential election. The old system, Voter News Service ~VNS! was scrapped entirely, and Edison-Mitofsky Research was chosen to implement a new and more accurate national exit poll in 2004 by a consortium of news organizations retained by the Associated Press called the National Election Pool ~NEP!. What happened? Exit poll results from EdisonMitofsky showed John Kerry ahead in Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico—all states which he lost to Bush in 2004. In addition to the overall exit poll results being skewed, comparative vote results for subgroups, such as that for Latino voters, also appeared to be wrong. The NEP reported on November 2, 2004, that Bush won 45% of the Latino vote, a 10-point gain from 2000. In contrast, an exit poll of only Latino voters conducted by the William C. Velasquez Institute reported that Bush won only 32% of the Latino vote. Moreover, a pre-election survey of Latino voters by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank with more than 10 years experience polling Latino voters, reported Bush garnering just 30% of the vote ~see Leal et al. 2005!. What explains such discrepancies? One possibility is the methodology used to select the precincts where exit poll interviews are conducted is faulty. Ideally, the respondents in the exit poll survey will be accurate representatives of the entire city or state in which the election is being held. However, if the exit poll interviews respondents that are too conservative or too liberal, too young or too old, too poor or too rich, or too White, it could skew the overall results by a wide margin, even after weights are employed. Existing exit polls are often unreliable because the members of the demographic subgroups interviewed for the poll are not necessarily representative of all members of their demographic subgroup. What’s more, with a growing number of Americans voting via absentee ballot, Election Day-only exit polls2 could miss a large segment of the electorate. Since the November 2004 presidential election considerable media coverage has focused on the exit poll controversy. A December 2004 New York Times article noted that Congressman John Conyers ~D-MI! asked Edison-Mitofsky “to turn over raw data collected in Election Day exit polls, for investigation of any discrepancies between voter responses and certified election results” ~Associated Press 2004!; a January 2005 Washington Post headline read, “Report Acknowledges Inaccuracies in 2004 Exit Poll” ~Morin and Deane 2005!; and CNN noted in January 2005 that the Kerry numbers were “overstated,” and claimed that “CNN did not air those inaccurate results or post them on its website.” Thus, many scholars and pundits reached the conclusion that new alternatives to the traditional exit poll may be warranted. Specifically, we pose two important methodological questions pertaining to the science behind exit polls: ~1! what is the most accurate sampling technique for polling racial and ethnic voters in a diverse setting, and ~2! how should exit polls account for early and absentee votes not cast on Election Day? To answer these questions, we implemented an alternative sampling exit poll in the City of Los Angeles during the 2005 mayoral election and compared our results to the exit poll implemented by the Los Angeles Times. We then compared both polls to the actual election results. In short, the different methodologies accounted for different results, suggesting that new approaches to exit polling are welcome. Matt A. Barreto is assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington. His research interests include Latino political participation and public opinion and has appeared in several journals including the American Political Science Review and Public Opinion Quarterly.

Homeownership Southern California's New Political Fault Line?

Homeownerships importance in Americas culture and economy raises the possibility that status as a homeowner or renter constitutes a core aspect of personal identity, on par with race and ethnicity. A survey from the socially diverse Los Angeles region provides a unique data set to test the possibility that homeownership exaggerates or mitigates social cleavages, particularly those based on race or ethnicity. The analysis reveals renters as less upbeat than homeowners regarding a variety of opinion measures and distinctly divided in their opinions along racial and ethnic lines. Among homeowners, however, the authors find a confluence of opinion across racial and ethnic lines.Homeownerships importance in Americas culture and economy raises the possibility that status as a homeowner or renter constitutes a core aspect of personal identity, on par with race and ethnicity. A survey from the socially diverse Los Angeles region provides a unique data set to test the possibility that homeownership exaggerates or mitigates social cleavages, particularly those based on race or ethnicity. The analysis reveals renters as less upbeat than homeowners regarding a variety of opinion measures and distinctly divided in their opinions along racial and ethnic lines. Among homeowners, however, the authors find a confluence of opinion across racial and ethnic lines.

Are All Precincts Created Equal? The Prevalence of Low-Quality Precincts in Low-Income and Minority Communities

More than forty years after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a fundamental question remains unanswered: although all citizens have an equal right to the ballot, do all citizens enjoy equal access to the ballot box? That is, are voting precincts in predominantly low-income and non-white neighborhoods less visible, less stable, harder to find, and harder to navigate than voting precincts in high-income and predominantly white neighborhoods? If so, does the lower quality result in lower levels of voting, all other things equal? The authors’ analysis indicates that the quality of polling places varies across the diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles and that the quality of polling places influences voter turnout. Low-income and minority communities tended to have “lower quality” precincts, which tended to depress voter turnout.

RACE AND RACIAL ATTITUDES A DECADE AFTER THE 1992 LOS ANGELES RIOTS

A decade after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, half of residents surveyed report they anticipate another riot. Pessimism concerning the prospect of futureriots is associated with negative assessments of life in Los Angeles—most notably negative perceptions of racial issues in the city. Demographic attributes including income, educational attainment, and duration of residency in Los Angeles are also associated with expectations of future riots. Racial or ethnic identity, however, have no appreciable direct or mediating impact on expectations of future riots, a striking findingin light of the central place race occupiesin social science research and public discourse.