Recent Publications
Race and perceptions of revitalisation in the ‘District of Gentrification’ (With Michael Leo Owens, Arica Schuett, and Nyron N. Crawford).
Ethnographies of gentrification, by using interviews, suggest individual and group sentiments about it as a form of revitalisation are heterogenous, even within neighbourhoods experiencing it. Discerning variation and changes over time in citywide sentiments about gentrification, however, is a challenge. It requires city-level survey data, especially longitudinal data, which is scarce. We use novel data from Washington Postsurveys of District of Columbia (i.e. Washington, DC) residents between 2000 and 2016 to test predictions of city-level gentrification opinions, deduced from neighbourhood-based ethnographies of gentrification. We observe and emphasise how, over time, race is consistently associated with opinion divergence about gentrification, including perceptions of its inequalities and consequences. Our findings demonstrate the value of citywide surveys for extending empirical findings from neighbourhood-level ethnographies of gentrification.
“Defund” or “Refund” the Police?: City Council Responsiveness to the Black Lives Matter Protests (With Bai Linh Hoang, University of texas, arlington).
In this research note, we investigate the degree to which local governments reduced or expanded the budgets of police departments in the aftermath of the nation-wide protests organized by the Black Lives Matter movement during the summer of 2020. We also consider the political and social factors that might explain local councils’ decisions on the budget. In analyzing an original dataset of about 100 of the most populous U.S. cities, we do notfind strong evidence of government efforts to “defund” the police. However, across various specifications of potential responsiveness to the movement’s demands, we do find that mayoral partisanship may be associ- ated with local government decisions to meaningfully reduce their police budgets or abstain from increasing them, but even this relationship may not be sustained in the longer term. Thus, we encourage more research on barriers that potentially inhibit local government responsiveness to social movements like Black Lives Matter.
You can read a Blog Post here!
“A Woman Whose Father Didn’t Graduate from High School Can Become This City’s First Female African American Mayor: Mayor Vi Lyles of Charlotte.”
In Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors, Sharon D. Wright Austin (editor), Temple University Press, pg. 141-156.
As a mayoral candidate in Charlotte, North Carolina, Vi Lyles contemplat- ed the options of either creating a biracial alliance among Black, Hispanic, progressive White, and unionized voters or one that linked Black and Lati- no voters, liberal Whites, and unions or running on a coalition that linked business interests to jobs in minority communities (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984, Hero 1992). Regardless of her choice, Lyles also had to decide whether her campaign would be deracialized and therefore avoid explicitly racialized issues (Austin and Middleton 2004). However, it would be diffi- cult to conduct such a campaign considering two key events. First, in 2016, the Charlotte City Council implemented House Bill 2 (HB2)—also known the bathroom bill—in the North Carolina legislature. This legislation was passed in response to the council’s passage of a nondiscrimination ordinance. Later that year, Keith Lamont Scott, a Black man, was shot by a Charlotte police of- ficer (who was also Black), which spurred widespread protests. It was in this context that the city elected the first Black woman to serve as mayor. Using content analysis of the campaign coverage, I argue that in this unique political context, Lyles was better served by building a biracial electoral alliance, not running a completely deracialized campaign, and focusing on women’s issue areas.
Does Incumbency Matter?: Black Voter Support for Non-Incumbent POC Democratic Candidates in the 2018 Congressional House of Representative Elections (With Sydney L. Carr, University of michigan)
During the 2018 House of Representatives elections, the United States saw a larger influx of minority candidates than elections in recent years. Many of these candidates were non-incumbents who ran successful campaigns against long-standing incumbents. Using the 2018 Cooperative Election Study data (CCES), we analyze the likelihood of Black voters to support White candidates over minority candidates, with a focus on incumbency status. Previous research has found that Black voters tend to display a larger affinity to support minority candidates due to theories such as group identity and racial voting. Given what is known from the literature about Black voting patterns, our study sets out to determine the extent to which incumbency matters for Black voters in the 2018 Congressional House of Representative (HOR) elections. The findings of our analysis reveal that Black voters are significantly more likely to support Democratic POC candidates, and significantly less likely to support Democratic white incumbents as compared to white voters. The findings of our study illuminate that both the affinity to support minority candidates and incumbency matter to Black voters.
PACs rule everything around me: how political action committees shape elections and policy in the local context
The vast majority of research on interest groups tends to focus on the state and national levels (Baumgartner et al. 2009; Bergan 2009; Kollman 1998, Leech et al. 2005). Recent scholarship has shifted to the local level, for good reason: there are a large number of cities that have organized interests and Political Action Committees (Anzia 2019a; Berry 2005; Reckhow 2009). Additionally, the local political context varies from state and national contexts in two key ways: many of these elections take place off-cycle, and many are nonpartisan (Anzia 2014; Davidson and Fraga 1988; Hajnal and Trounstine 2005). Using data from an exit poll conducted during the 2017 municipal election in Durham, NC, I consider whether voters in Durham knew which Political Action Committees (PACs) endorsed which candidates and whether knowing the endorsements of candidates is associated with their support for those candidates. I explore when local PACs engage in activities that mirror state and national interest groups. In these nonpartisan contexts, PACs borrow from the playbook of political parties during election season by giving endorsements and sending mailers to their members. Outside of election season, they borrow from the playbook of interest groups by lobbying local elected officials.
Set in Stone? Predicting Confederate Monument Removal (with Ray Block, Pennsylvania State University, Jared Clemons, Duke University, Chryl Laird, Set in Stone? Predicting Confederate Monument Removal (with Ray Block, Pennsylvania State University, Jared Clemons, Duke University, Chryl Laird, Bowdoin College, and Julian Wamble, Stony Brook University)Bowdoin College, and Julian Wamble, Stony Brook University)
Recent events have led to a renewed conversation surrounding the relevance and potential removal of Confederate monuments around the country, and several monuments have already been removed. However, we have little insight to explain why some monuments have been removed while others remain. This article seeks to understand the social and political determinants that can better explain the recent removal of Confederate monuments throughout the United States. Analyzing results from an original dataset of Confederate monuments, we identify which local government structures and racial and civic characteristics best predict the removal of these monuments. Ultimately, although we find that other factors contribute to monument removal, the size of the black population, the presence of a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter, and the percentage of Democrats in a county in which a monument exists—as well as whether the monument exists in a state that constrains removal by legislative decree—best predict whether a Confederate monument will be taken down. This project elucidates the interplay of race, partisanship, and local and statewide politics as it relates to the dismantling of Confederate monuments.
We wrote a blog post for The Washington Post Monkey Cage here!
“Revisiting Political Incorporation: Black Electoral and Policy Inclusion in the Bull City. The Two Dimensions of Political Incorporation: Black Politics in a Majority-Minority City.”
In Black Politics in Transition: Immigration, Suburbanization, and Gentrification, Candis Watts Smith and Christina M. Greer (editors), Routledge, pg. 110-137.
Picking Winners: How Political Organizations Influence Local Elections (With Alexis Miller)
Endorsements have become a part of most election cycles. They come from a variety of sources (civic organizations, elected officials, newspapers, etc.) and are intended to signal voters that one candidate is preferential to another. Yet, there is still a lot that we do not know about endorsements. In this article, we provide insight into the process of how organizations and newspapers endorse candidates, provide evidence that demonstrates candidates believe these endorsements are important, and test the claim that voters are aware of these endorsements even when controlling for factors such as partisanship, ideology, and education. We also test the claim that issue positions explain vote choice better than endorsements. We rely on interview data and exit poll data to test our claims. Using data from an at- large municipal election, in which voters selected up to three candidates, we find that awareness of endorsements explains vote choice better than issues.
Coethnic Endorsements, Out-Group Candidate Preferences, and Perceptions in Local Elections
Black and Latino voters support coethnic candidates at high rates in local elections. What is less clear is how Black and Latino voters respond to out- group candidates when they do not have the option to support a coethnic candidate. I posit that when race and ethnicity become salient in a campaign, endorsements from Black and Latino leaders and organizations increase support of out-group candidates among Blacks and Latinos. I find that this hypothesis is strongly supported among Blacks. However, the same is not true for Latinos, most likely because of the political heterogeneity of the group. Using data from a survey experiment, I show that Black endorsements of minority out-group candidates are persuasive for Blacks, while comparable endorsements from Latinos are not as influential among Latinos.