Regina Branton

Agenda Setting, Public Opinion, and the Issue of Immigration Reform

Objective. Agenda-setting theory is used to motivate hypotheses about how media coverage of immigration influences public perceptions of its importance. The authors seek to offer a more complete explanation of public opinion on immigration by exploring differences in the effects of immigration news in border and nonborder states. Method. This article employs content analyses of newspaper coverage of immigration and Gallup public opinion data over a 12-month period (January‐ December 2006). Respondents’ identification of immigration as a ‘‘Most Important Problem’’ is modeled as a conditional relationship between border state/nonborder state residence and media coverage, ethnic context, and individual-level demographics. Results. Media attention to immigration is greater in border states than in nonborder states; as a result, residents of border states are more likely to identify immigration as a most important problem than are residents of nonborder states. Conclusions. The analyses point to the importance of geography and news coverage in explanations of public opinion on immigration. The public’s attitude toward immigration has traditionally been different for those residing in states that share a border with Mexico and those living in nonborder states. Extant survey research, which focuses primarily on Anglo attitudes (Alvarez and Buttereld, 2000; Johnson, Stein, and Wrinkle, 2003), reveals that individuals residing in border states consistently rate immigration as one of the ‘‘most important problems facing the nation,’’ relative to individuals residing in nonborder states. However, immediately following the 2006 spike in national media attention toward immigration reform and the wave of immigration protests nationwide, public opinion polls revealed that national public opinion regarding immigration surged to

Latino Attitudes toward Various Areas of Public Policy The Importance of Acculturation

The growth of the Latino population and the increasing political importance of this group leads to questions about the potential political importance of this group. As such, it is important to gain a better understanding of political attitudes among Latinos. This study focuses on the relationship between Latino acculturation and attitudes toward immigration-and non-immigration-related public policies. The results indicate that Latino attitudes toward immigration related issues as well as other more general policy items vary as a function of ones level of acculturation.

Beyond Logit and Probit: Cox Duration Models of Single, Repeating, and Competing Events for State Policy Adoption:

Since 1990, the standard statistical approach for studying state policy adoption has been an event history analysis using binary link models, such as logit or probit. In this article, we evaluate this logit-probit approach and consider some alternative strategies for state policy adoption research. In particular, we discuss the Cox model, which avoids the need to parameterize the baseline hazard function and, therefore, is often preferable to the logit-probit approach. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the Cox model can be modified to deal effectively with repeatable and competing events, events that the logit-probit approach cannot be used to model.

Examining Individual-Level Voting Behavior on State Ballot Propositions

The intent of this study is to provide a broad examination of individual-level voting behavior on ballot propositions. This study seeks to extend the existing research on voting behavior in ballot elections in two ways: first, by examining a large number of issues across numerous states and second, by examining the “general” factors associated with voting choice. To examine individual-level voting behavior on state ballot initiative, I rely on Voter News Service (VNS) state-level exit poll surveys from three election periods (1992-1996). Overall, this study casts some light on the relationships between individual attributes and voting choices on different types of ballot propositions. The results generated herein lend support for expectation that there are some consistent patterns in voting behavior on ballot initiatives. Notably, the results indicate that individual-level party identification is consistently related to voting behavior across each of the various types of ballot propositions.

Spatial Proximity to the U.S.—Mexico Border and Newspaper Coverage of Immigration Issues

This article examines how geographic proximity to the U.S.—Mexico border influences newspaper coverage of immigration issues. The authors investigate two questions: Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of Latino immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of the negative aspects of immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? We find that news organizations closer to the border generate a higher volume of articles about Latino immigration, articles featuring the negative aspects of immigration, and articles regarding illegal immigration.

All Along the Watchtower: Acculturation Fear, Anti-Latino Affect, and Immigration

In this article, we consider how the factors driving Anglo attitudes toward immigration changed in the post-9/11 era. We argue that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the immigration issue became nationalized, framed in a threat context. In this context, acculturation fear and anti-Latino sentiment are strong predictors of restrictionist sentiment; in the pre-9/11 period, these factors have little substantive impact on Anglo attitudes. We theorize that the current climate has helped ‘‘activate’’ social identities, which in turn has deleterious consequences for the Latinos in the United States. Using data from the 2000 and 2004 National Election Studies, we estimate a model of Anglo immigration attitudes. We show indicators of acculturation fear, anti-Latino sentiment, and media exposure significantly relate to Anglo immigration attitudes in the post-9/11 period but not the pre-9/11 period.

The Importance of Race and Ethnicity in Congressional Primary Elections

Research regarding the electoral importance of race and ethnicity in congressional elections is limited by the overwhelming focus on general-election outcomes. This article seeks to extend this research by examining minority candidate emergence and electoral competition in U.S. House primary elections, using a new data set on all U.S. House contests between 1994 and 2004 that includes demographic information on all the candidates in the primary elections. The results indicate that district-level race and ethnicity are associated with minority candidate emergence; furthermore, the presence of minority candidates influences electoral competitiveness in primary elections.

Racializing Gender: Public Opinion at the Intersection

Efforts to understand the political implications of categorical prejudices—like racism and sexism—are complicated by the intersectional nature of social groups. Evaluating attitudes toward members of a single social category (e.g., African-Americans) in isolation can produce misleading conclusions, as racial cues commonly coincide with gender cues and create meaningful subgroups (McConnaughy and White 2014). The idea that different subgroups of women experience distinctive forms of discrimination is reflected in the concept of “double jeopardy.” Double jeopardy suggests that black and Hispanic women experience discrimination differently from white women or men of color because they simultaneously belong to a low-status gender group and a low-status racial/ethnic group (King 1988; Levin et al. 2002; cf. Sidanius and Veniegas 2000). As a result, women who are racial or ethnic minorities face a cumulative discrimination that extends beyond racism or sexism alone (King 1988; Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach 2008).

The Influence of Social Protests on Issue Salience among Latinos

Much of the protest literature has examined the policy consequences of social protests. Few studies focus on the effect of social protests on public opinion. We examine the impact of the 2006 immigration protests on the saliency of immigration among Latinos. The 2006 Latino National Survey was in the field before and after the protests began, creating a natural experiment. Using these data, we discover protests increased Latinos’ perception of undocumented immigration as the most important problem facing Latinos. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the effect of protest was not uniform across the population but rather contingent on individuals’ characteristics.

A Reexamination of Women’s Electoral Success in Open Seat Elections: The Conditioning Effect of Electoral Competition

ABSTRACT This article reexamines gender differences in electoral outcomes. We consider whether electoral competition has a differential impact on the electoral fortunes of male and female quality candidates. This study uses an original data set containing detailed candidate information for US House open seat primary and general elections between 1994 and 2004. The results indicate that when multiple quality candidates enter the race, female quality candidates are at a greater disadvantage than their male counterparts. The results suggest that null findings from previous work are a product of the way the relationship between gender and electoral outcomes is typically modeled.