Abstract
Sociologists are fundamentally concerned with the way aspects of identity, especially the individual’s race, interact with societal-level norms. Yet, sociological insights from decades of empirical and theoretical advancements have been under-utilized to inform conversations on contemporary U.S. politics. Specifically, political theorists have argued for racial resentment theory and social dominance orientation (SDO) to explain why racial minorities sometimes perform worse in U.S. elections. I argue that this approach does not leave room for different cultural logics to operate for different racial/ethnic categories. I apply this argument to a conjoint experimental setting centered on testing the impact of uncivil political behavior. I administered a conjoint experiment to more than 3,000 individuals across two samples of U.S. adults from the Cooperative Election Study and Prolific Academic, Ltd. I measure the effects of civil versus uncivil statements (critiques versus lies and insults) for Asian, Black, Latino, and white political candidates. Notably, I find that when candidates behave civilly and when they lie, respondents’ candidate racial preferences are minimized. It is among candidates who insult their opponents that race explains preferences with stereotype-breaking behavior by Asian and Latino candidates being rewarded most. Black and white candidates who insult their opponents are penalized. I discuss implications for the racialized perceptions of political candidates in the U.S., focusing on where existing theories explain these results and where they fail to do so.