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Descriptive representation in a multi-racial America

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Descriptive representation in a multi-racial America

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Content 1 DISSERTATION Descriptive Representation in a Multi-Racial America Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California Defended March 8, 2019 Conferring Program: FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL Degree being conferred: Doctor of Philosophy POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Degree conferral date: AUGUST 2019 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction (p.3) Article 1: Asian American Mobilization: The Effect of Asian American Candidates on Asian American Voting Behavior (p.10) Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity: Evidence from California's Top Two Primary (p. 55) Article 3: Candidate Ethnicity and Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections (p. 114) Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 3 INTRODUCTION This dissertation considers representation from the perspective of the United States as a multi-racial and multi-ethnic polity. I examine the conditions under which Asian American and Latino candidates are elected to office, the multi-racial coalitions that elect them, the unequal distribution of community resources that effect mobilization, the implication of diverse elected officials on representation, and the role of electoral institutions in the representational relationship. This project was supported by an external fellowship from the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation, the Ralph O. and Katherine S. Bartling Endowed Fellowship and numerous merit-based fellowships from the University of Southern California. In this introduction I will summarize the central theoretical argument and key findings of the dissertation. CENTRAL ARGUMENT In the dissertation, I advance a new theory of minority political behavior, which I refer to as “resource-empowerment.” While the name should hearken back to traditional resource models of political behavior as well as the empowerment thesis of African American political behavior, resource-empowerment embodies a broad range of individual and group-based resources. I argue that membership in a racial or ethnic minority group alone is not enough to explain political participation outcomes such as voter turnout. Instead, researchers must also consider the socio- economic resources of a community and how the combined effect of both status in a minority group combined with individualize resources influences political behavior outcomes. Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 4 I examine the Asian American community in the first two articles of the dissertation as a test case of the resource-empowerment theory. Asian Americans occupy a unique space within the American racial hierarchy. They are a community that is very much a minority, as evidenced by the high number of respondents of the National Asian American Survey reporting instances of discrimination based on race and feelings of social exclusion. Given their status as a minority group, many contemporary studies now include examinations of Asian American attitudes vis-à- vis African American, Latino and White attitudes. But in making between-group comparisons, are we comparing apples to apples, so to speak? For example, can the concept of linked fate be uniformly measured between these groups or might what binds groups together differ between African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans? In addition to being a minority group, Asian Americans – on average – are also more highly resourced than African Americans and Latinos. Resource-empowerment, thus, argues that we should expect Asian Americans to display variations in political behavior outcomes in comparison to African Americans and Latinos. I take the case of Asian American voter turnout in the presence of a co-ethnic candidate to test this theory. While this dissertation largely focuses on Asian Americans as a test case for resource- empowerment, I intend in the future to examine within group variation between higher and lower resourced Latinos and African Americans and hypothesize that similar trends will be found. The race and ethnic politics literature that examines the effect of co-ethnic candidates on the ballot is considered well settled. Without a consideration for ethno/racial district context, co- ethnic candidates alone have a limited mobilizing effect on communities of color. In other words, simply having a Latino or African American on the ballot, particularly for down-ballot elections, is not enough to stimulate minority turnout. By taking the case of Asian Americans, I depart from this literature and respond by theorizing that both group based resources and individual Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 5 resources influence voter behavior. I theorize the first element of resource-empowerment is a group-based resource, stemming from both group-based consciousness that can be activated, particularly in an electoral context and from elite driven appeals that inform and subsequently mobilize voters of color. At the candidate level, I contend that candidates with the same ethnic background will mobilize co-ethnic voters for strategic reasons. For example, recent Texas Congressional candidate and Indian American Sri Kulkarni conducted phone banks during his campaign in 13 different languages, spent time not only door knocking lists of reliable voters, but reaching out to ethnic community centers and places of worship – reaching many potential voters who had never been contacted before. In other words, candidates of color themselves play an important role reaching out and mobilizing a base that is often overlooked by other candidates who may not know or be familiar with how a diverse community works or is organized. At the voter level, voters want to vote for candidates of the same ethnicity. What underlies this is group consciousness and linked fate. This is a necessary condition for mobilization, but as many studies – particularly aggregate studies of Latino turnout have shown us – group consciousness and linked fate may be necessary, but not sufficient for mobilization. A second element of resource-empowerment draws upon foundational works in American political science that demonstrate a strong relationship between political participation and individual resources – such as high socio-economic status. At the candidate level, most candidates target higher SES voters – those with records of prior or consistent voting, possibly those who donate, those who speak English. Thus, those who received campaign messages already tend to be better individually resourced. At the voter level, we know that high SES voters tend to be more informed, more engaged and more attentive about campaigns and politics. The more informed a voter is about the district and about the candidates who are running, the more Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 6 likely they are to know there is a co-ethnic candidate on the ballot. This is important, especially for measuring mobilization. It is possible of course for an individual to go to the polls, look down the ballot and see a co-ethnic name that one wants to support. To mobilize for a co-ethnic candidate, however, an individual must be informed about who is running in advance of the election, which requires knowledge and attentiveness. Many contemporary studies of minority political behavior emphasize the importance of context on attitudes and behavioral outcomes, such as neighborhood level ethnic specific stimuli (Wilcox-Archuleta 2018), geographic political context (Ramirez et al 2016), or localized political networks (Ocampo 2017). My theory of resource-empowerment should be viewed as complementary to such emergent studies that emphasize context. In many ways resource allocation shapes context. In highly resourced geographic areas and districts, we find citizens, voters and survey respondents with higher levels of income and education – the foundations of the resource-empowerment theory. I argue that it is the combination of both individual and group-based resources that leads to a sense of empowerment – defined by enhanced political participation –that should lead us to expect high SES voters of color to mobilize for and support a co-ethnic candidate. In the case of Asian Americans, I find evidence of this regardless of the contextual features that scholars argue we must consider for minority turnout. Aldrich (1993) wrote, “turning out to vote…is one of the most important behaviors for scholars of democratic politics to understand. And yet, it is not well understood.” Resource-empowerment cannot explain each and every vote cast, but as a theory it can help us explain and understand variations in voting behavior between various minority groups. Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 7 SECONDARY ARGUMENTS An additional strand that permeates particularly the second and third article of this dissertation is the influence of the Top Two primary in California. I use the top two system as an analytic tool to examine voting behavior in the absence of a partisan cue. I also argue, however, that the existing literature examining primary systems lacks a clear and explicit articulation of the potential impact of primary institutional design on minority voting behavior. Several studies have examined whether primary institution type can lead to either legislator polarization or moderation. Largely missing from these accounts, I argue, is an explicit theory of how the racial dynamics of minority voters might influence the outcome of elections under the constraint of the top two primary. In addition, this project argues for the examination of Asian Americans both as an aggregated group and in their national origin subgroup components. The 2016 National Asian American Survey maintains that Asian American identity continues to be contested, particularly among South Asians who find it more challenging for American society to view them as Asian American. This dissertation probes the distinction between pan-ethnic and co-ethnic Asian American identities, which has previously not been done in the examination of voter data. METHODS OF ANALYSIS The dissertation largely relies on publicly available vote returns from California’s Statewide Database (SWDB). Through the research phase, I examined assembly, congressional and senate elections from across the state. While the dissertation project settled on analysis of state assembly elections, my analysis of congressional elections has been featured in popular press publications at The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and Mischiefs of Faction at Vox. The Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 8 SWDB pulls vote returns and standardizes variables across counties at the precinct level. Unique to the data set, is that the SWDB conducts surname matching for Latinos and the six largest Asian American subgroups: Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Filipino, Korean and Vietnamese. Surname matching is a powerful tool used to predict and identify groups based on race and ethnicity. In a second stage of data collection, I developed a new dataset that identifies all general election candidates for assembly over the same time period. In total, I examined 480 candidates, 45 of whom were Asian American. Throughout the dissertation, I analyze my data and results using a number of different tests including fixed effects models, ordinary least squares regression, difference in difference analysis, and ecological inference estimation. At different points, I analyzed survey data as a possible supplement to my findings, although that work did not ultimately have a place in the final dissertation. For future versions of the articles, conducting survey experiments may also compliment and bolster my findings. KEY FINDINGS This dissertation makes a new and novel contribution to our understanding of turnout for voters of color. First, I find that the presence of an Asian American candidate mobilizes Asian American voter turnout (Article 1). Second, I find that racial and ethnic identities influence a voter’s decision-making process and this finding holds for both Asian Americans (Article 2) and for Latinos (Article 3). Using ecological inference to examine the competition between two Asian American congressional candidates in the nation's only Asian American majority district, I find distinct divergence between Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian voters in their preference of Asian American candidates of different national origin backgrounds but the same party. In a Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 9 similar examination of the voting behavior of Latino Democrats in elections in which the top two open primary system has resulted in two Republicans on the general election ballot, I find, with co-author Matthew Mendez, that when a Latino is present on the ballot, Latino Democrats overwhelmingly cast their support in favor of a co-ethnic candidate and argue that Latinos are strategic voters who, under the constraint of a co-partisan election, support co-ethnic candidates from an opposing party. The findings advance our knowledge of the political behavior of voters from burgeoning immigrant communities - groups that are quickly influential voters in districts across the nation. AFTERWORD My sincere thanks to the University of Southern California, the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation, my dissertation committee – including Jane Junn, Christian Grose, Ricardo Ramirez and Jody Agius Vallejo – the community of scholars involved in the Politics of Race, Immigration and Ethnicity Consortium (PRIEC) and countless other mentors and peers for their support throughout the process. Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 10 ARTICLE I Asian American Mobilization: The Effect of Asian American Candidates on Asian American Voting Behavior ABSTRACT: While numerous studies have examined the effect of a co-ethnic on the ballot for African Americans and Latinos, Asian Americans remain understudied in this regard. With the growth of Asian American voter nationwide, empirical questions prevail: Does the presence of an Asian American candidate on the ballot spur Asian American turnout? Can we expect country of origin subgroups of Asian Americans such as Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese voters to support co-ethnic candidates or does such cohesion not exist? Using surname-matched vote returns from the California state assembly across three election years, I examine both pan-ethnic and national origin Asian American turnout in the presence of a co- ethnic candidate. I find that Asian American candidates do have a measurable increase on both pan-ethnic and national origin turnout. The findings suggest Asian American political behavior is markedly distinct from other minority voters. Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 11 “…The most powerful and visible sign of ethnic political relevance is a fellow-ethnic’s name at the head of the ticket.” --Raymond Wolfinger, 1965 “…Human beings can be thought of as symbols and can, under the right circumstances, stand for, represent and mobilize a people.” --Evelyn Simien, 2015 INTRODUCTION The 2010 United States Census indicated that Asian Americans were the nation’s fastest growing immigrant group and the Pew Research Center projects Asian Americans to surpass Latinos as the largest immigrant group in the nation by 2055 (Lopez, Ruiz and Patten 2017). With this growth have come questions about the political participation and the potential influence the community might wield. Following the 2008 election of Barack Obama, in which Asian Americans were seen organizing and mobilizing in support of a candidate with a half- Asian sister and ties to Asia, pundits and scholars questioned if we should expect Asian Americans to vote as a group. While scholars have examined this issue among African American and Latino voters, the political participation of Asian Americans is relatively underdeveloped, largely due to the heterogeneous nature of the community 1 . This study begins to fill this omission within the voter behavior literature. I investigate the following questions: Given the vast diversity of the Asian American community, do Asian Americans have a shared group identity that will influence political participation outcomes? Does the presence of an Asian American candidate on the ballot empower Asian American citizens to turn out to vote in greater numbers? Can we expect country of origin subgroups of Asian Americans such as Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese voters to support other Asian candidates or is there less cohesion within the Asian American community compared to Latinos? 1 One notable exception is Seun-Jin Jang’s 2009 study in Political Behavior, examining the influence of racial context on differences in turnout between Latinos and Asian Americans. That study, however, does not examine differences in Asian American behavior by country of origin. Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 12 I engage these questions by examining the consequences of an Asian American candidate on the ballot for the California State Assembly. While Asian American populations may be small in other states, California boasts a large and diverse Asian American community. Over the course of three elections, from 2012 to 2016, Asian American candidates appeared on the ballot forty-five times in a state in which 12 percent of likely voters are Asian American (Baldassare et al 2017). Foundational studies of American political behavior would theorize that an Asian American on the ballot would inspire increases in co-ethnic turnout (Dahl 1961; Wolfinger 1965). In the examination of this relationship for African Americans and Latinos, numerous studies suggest that a shared identity, group consciousness and sense of linked fate would be the mechanism by which minority voters would be propelled to support co-ethnic candidates (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Dawson 1994; Barreto 2007; McConnaughy et al. 2010). But who is a co- ethnic candidate for an ‘Asian American’ voter? Is an Indian American candidate a co-ethnic for a Chinese American voter? This study departs from prior works that compares Asian Americans solely as a pan-ethnic group vis-à-vis Latinos or other racial groups (Jang 2009, Fraga 2016), and considers Asian American political behavior both by country of origin and as a pan-ethnic group. While the existence and salience of a shared identity amongst Asian Americans was previously considered low (Uhlaner, Cain, and Kiewiet 1989), various accounts have revealed an Asian American group consciousness and linked fate to be a dynamic and changing construct, at times latent or, alternatively, activated particularly among second generation Asian Americans or naturalized immigrants (Ramakrishnan and Espenshade 2001; Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004; Junn and Masuoka 2008; Wong et al. 2011). Moreover, these studies suggest that there may be distinct differences in group identity formation and political behavior outcomes between recently emigrated Asian Americans and Asian American voters, who by definition are either native-born Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 13 U.S. citizens or naturalized citizens with many years of residence in the United States (Junn 1999; Tam Cho 1999). Consistent with these studies, I argue that a greater sense of group consciousness underscores Asian American mobilization for an intragroup co-ethnic. Drawing on social identity theory, racial politics and political behavior literatures, I theorize, that Asian American political participation draws upon a unique configuration of elements that I refer to as resource-empowerment. ‘Asian American’ as a racial construct becomes more salient as a factor of political participation amongst second generational cohorts (Rumbaut 1997; Kibria 2003; Ramakrishnan 2005). In addition, beyond national-origin cultural and linguistic ties, Asian Americans born and raised in the United States or who have sustained many years of residency and the naturalization process, often have shared experiences as an immigrant community: they have faced social exclusion and discrimination (Espiritu 1993; Eng 2001; Kuo, Malhotra, and Mo 2017), and they occupy a similar triangulated racial placement within the American societal structure (Omi and Winant 2014; Kim 1999; Masuoka and Junn 2013). Consistent with the political behavior literature, a majority of Asian Americans also have higher levels of educational attainment and increasing incomes, two factors often considered vital to political participation (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Nie, Junn, and Stehlik-Barry 1996; Verba et al. 1995). Given this range of factors, I argue that the presence of an Asian American candidate will increase Asian American turnout. While this shared and intragroup ‘Asian American’ identity continues to be in formation, national surveys of Asian Americans suggest a persistent self-identification with their country of origin (Wong et al 2011). Co-ethnic relationships, thus, must also be examined at the level of national-origin subgroup. Given the myriad of subgroups that fall within Asian American label, I also contend that Asian American voters will mobilize at greater levels for national-origin co- Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 14 ethnics. In other words, I theorize that Filipino American voters will turnout at higher rates for a Filipino American candidate on the ballot and Chinese Americans will turnout at higher rates for a Chinese American candidate. I probe this distinction within my analysis. I test these theoretical expectations through the use of a new dataset that identifies the race or ethnicity of every candidate for the eighty-member California Assembly from 2012 though 2016 (480 candidates in total). Among Asian American candidates, I additionally identify their country of origin. This data was combined with surname matched precinct-level voter registration and statement of vote data available from the UC Berkeley Statewide Database. The result is a dataset that identifies six subgroups of Asian American voters in California, in which I examine the voting behavior of Asian American voters when exposed to a co-ethnic candidate on the ballot. The findings challenge recent scholarship that finds no significant impact of a co- ethnic candidate among Asian American voters in congressional elections (Fraga 2016) and advance our understanding of political behavior in the United States in an era of growing racial and ethnic diversity. THE CO-ETHNIC PARADIGM To assert that a candidate on the ballot would have a mobilizing effect on co-ethnic voters is not new. In his 1965 study of Italian and Irish immigrant communities in New Haven, Wolfinger articulates a mobilization theory of ethnic voting. He observed strong partisan attachments and support for co-ethnic candidates despite upward economic mobility within the communities, which might otherwise suggest a level of integration or assimilation. Subsequent scholarship considering co-ethnic bonds among African American voters theorized the presence of black elected officials creates a more trusting orientation toward the political process and Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 15 could stimulate the subsequent political engagement of African Americans (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Whitby and Gilliam 1991). The scope of this research was widened and refined with the examination of a similar mobilizing effect among Latinos (Brace et al. 1995; Pantoja, Ramirez, and Segura 2001; Barreto, Segura, and Woods 2004; Barreto 2007). Only two studies have attempted to extend this analysis to the examination of Asian Americans (Jang 2009; Fraga 2016). Underlying these applications is the theoretical presumption that group consciousness and a sense of linked fate among minority communities spurs increased participation and turnout. The impact of group consciousness and linked fate on political behavior outcomes is well documented and debated within the political behavior literature. I rely on McClain et al.’s definition of group consciousness as an “in-group identification politicized by a set of ideological beliefs about one’s group’s social standing, as well as a view that collective action is the best means by which the group can improve its status and realize its interests,” (2009, p.476; See also Jackman and Jackman 1973; Gurin et al. 1980; Miller et al. 1981). Moreover, group consciousness is a multidimensional construct that takes into consideration, first, the structural hierarchy of society, second, an individual’s view of where their in-group stands within that structure and, third, the individual’s perception that acting together as a group may improve the group’s standing within the hierarchy. To be clear, this definition of group consciousness is conceptually and methodologically distinct from other psychological constructs. In particular, group consciousness and group identity are two different constructs (Chong and Rogers 2005). Group identity, or the awareness of belonging to a certain group, likely informs an individual’s sense of group consciousness, but an individual can identify with a racial group without developing a group consciousness. Group consciousness has been operationalized by scholars typically as survey items that measure the multiple dimensions of the construct (Verba and Nie Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 16 1972; Shingles 1981; Miller et al. 1981; Chong and Rogers 2005), such as the closeness one feels to other in-group members, a perception that the group faces discrimination, and a belief that one’s fate is linked to that of the group. Simien (2005) describes linked fate as “the recognition that individual life chances are inextricably tied to the race as a whole,” (p.529) This sense of rising linked fate and more broadly group consciousness within minority communities is a predominant theoretical assumption that undergirds many empirical demonstrations of increased voter turnout levels of a racial group, which Lee (2008) has referred to as an “identity-to- politics” link. Studies examining differences in political participation outcomes by racial group have found higher participation levels of African Americans compared to whites of similar socioeconomic background, leading many to assert that linked fate among African Americans helps explain their relatively high political participation (Miller et al. 1981; Shingles 1981; Verba and Nie 1972). For African Americans, linked fate stems from a history of group-based social and economic segregation, discrimination and exclusionary policies and institutions (Dawson 1994; Gurin, Hatchett, and Jackson 1990; Tate 2003a; Cohen 1999). It is also advanced and crystallized by interaction with informal and formal African-American sociopolitical networks such as black media, the black family and black religious and community organizations (Dawson 2003; Calhoun-Brown 1996). However, there is a distinction to be made: While African Americans have been found to have participation rates at levels near or higher to that of whites, scholars have not found a definitive mobilizing effect, as measured by increased turnout, given the presence of an African American on the ballot (Brace et al. 1995; Gay 2001; Tate 2003b; Griffin and Keane 2006; Keele and White 2018). Despite this distinction, scholars have theorized that elevated or activated racialized group consciousness may also help explain participation and Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 17 mobilization for Latinos and Asian Americans (Leighley 2001; Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004; Garcia Bedolla and Michelson 2012). Scholars have often been cautious to over-assert the pan-ethnic strength of the Latino community given the variety of national-origin backgrounds (De La Garza et al. 1992; DeSipio 1996; Jones-Correa and Leal 1996; Beltran 2010; Hero 1992). Nevertheless, research has shown a significant and growing level of both group consciousness and linked fate among Latinos. The process for acquiring linked fate among Latinos has been found to be different from that of African Americans (Sanchez 2006; Sanchez & Vargas 2016). Lacking a common history or a singular type of immigrant experience, Sanchez and Masuoka (2010) found linked fate to be higher among Spanish-dominant respondents, a possible indication that linked fate amongst Latinos could be a temporary phenomenon that dissipates over time. In these same studies, the experience of discrimination was not a strong predictor of linked fate among Latinos. Linked fate, thus, is a distinctive construct for Latinos in comparison to African Americans (Sanchez & Vargas 2016). Linked fate and group consciousness amongst Latinos has been found to have a more attenuated impact on mobilization and turnout. Studies attempting to identify a correlation between a Latino candidate on the ballot and increases in Latino voter turnout only find this relationship in distinct contextual environments – such as the composition and percentage of Latinos within a district (Fraga 2016), the overlapping nature of majority-minority districts (Barreto, Segura & Woods 2004), the electoral context such as whether the election is a statewide competition for senate or governor, city wide for mayor or congressional and assembly legislative districts (Barreto 2007), and the proportion of Latino registrants to the percentage of Latinos in the general population (L. R. Fraga and Ramírez 2004; Ramirez 2013). Using the present dataset, I confirm these results. Absent an account of district demographics, I find the Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 18 presence of a Latino candidate does not stimulate Latino turnout in California Assembly contests. Beyond linked fate and group consciousness, which prioritizes individual-level behavior, a complimentary research program considers the effect of elite mobilization. Leighley (2001), has emphasized the need to consider the impact of elite mobilization, particularly among minority voters. She describes elite mobilization as “explicit or implicit solicitation of individuals’ engagement in political activity by elites, who provide an information subsidy, i.e, regarding where to vote, or how to become registered, or when the meeting is scheduled…” (p. 7). Leighley’s contribution offers an important insight into the mechanization of co-ethnicity. Her contribution suggests that while the simple presence of a co-ethnic’s name on the ballot may be a part of the mobilization effect, the appeal of a co-ethnic candidate may reach and influence co-ethnic voters in a way another candidate does not or cannot. While the dataset used in this study does not capture ethnic specific campaign appeals, the potential and probable influence of elite mobilization on ethnic turnout would be an essential future scholarly endeavor (Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004; Trivedi 2005; J. S. Wong 2005; Garcia Bedolla and Michelson 2012). Given the consistently null results of voter mobilization amongst Latinos and African Americans with a co-ethnic candidate in the absence of district contextual factors, why should we expect Asian Americans – a group that has even less commonality than Latinos, who have no shared language, culture or national-origin – to vote as a group in the presence of an Asian American candidate? Numerous scholars have warned about the application of the terminology and measurement tools of group consciousness and linked fate on Asian Americans (Chong and Rogers 2005; Lee 2007). While this study does not directly measure levels of group consciousness among Asian Americans, what have recent studies of group consciousness and Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 19 linked fate of Asian Americans found that would lead to the expectation of an identity-to-politics linkage? UNDERSTANDING THE ASIAN AMERICAN ELECTORATE Asian Americans are an evolving electorate. The growing influence of Asian American voters and candidates, particularly in California, has been widely recognized (Nakanishi 1991; Decker 2015.) Asian Americans have commonalities that resemble elements of both Latinos and whites. Like Latinos, Asian Americans have a growing sense of pan-ethnic identity that, as Wolfinger espoused, may mobilize voters to support co-ethnic candidates. While this relationship has been difficult to find amongst Latino voters, and instead research point to various contextual requirements, the same may not be true for Asian Americans. More like whites, whose participation is often viewed as a result of various resources such as income, education and time (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Brady et al. 1995; Verba et al. 1995), Asian Americans are, on average, a community that is highly educated, in large part due to the large number of Asian Americans who enter the United States through visa programs, like the H1b, designed for high skilled workers. While Asian Americans are diverse in their socioeconomic status, many Asian Americans do occupy middle to upper income socioeconomic status. This combination of factors comprises what I call the resource-empowerment thesis of Asian American electoral participation and helps explain why we should expect a mobilization of Asian American voters around an Asian American candidate, regardless of the district composition or context. This conceptualization of resource-empowerment draws upon theories of participation that rely upon both individual-level resources and group-based resources as explanatory Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 20 mechanisms. I theorize the first element of resource-empowerment for Asian American political behavior draws upon both foundational works in American political science and the race and ethnic politics literature to encompass resources that are uniquely available to many Asian Americans. Traditional voting behavior research has found a battery of individual-level socioeconomic indicators and resources to be predictive of increased political participation (Campbell et al. 1960; Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Nie, Junn, and Stehlik-Barry 1996; Verba et al. 1995). Many of these earlier works did not distinguish how the models and theories might apply to racial minorities, and have since been considered benchmarks particularly for white political participation, but not necessarily explanatory of minority participation (Smith 1993; Leighley and Vedlitz 1999; Leighley 2001; Lien 2004; Barreto and Pedraza 2009). To the extent that many of these traditional resources such as education and income are available to many Asian American voters suggests that Asian Americans may be a test case of the resource model of political participation beyond whites (Sears & Brown 2013). The twenty million Asian Americans in the United States trace their roots from more than twenty different countries in East Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia (Aoki and Nakanishi 2001; Nakanishi and Lai 2003). With that comes an array of immigration pathways (Aoki and Takeda 2008). Many communities, particularly those of Southeast Asia arrived in the United States as refugees and may lack the resources of income, high levels of educational attainment called for by the resource models of participation (Zhou et al. 2008; J. Lee and Zhou 2015). Another portion of the community, however, has entered the United States as students pursuing advanced degrees, highly skilled workers in science and technology fields and their family members (Min and Jang 2015). Thus, while Asian Americans comprise a wide spectrum of class backgrounds, in Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 21 comparison to Latinos and African Americans, Asian Americans occupy on-average a higher income, more highly educated status (Masuoka and Junn 2013). Beyond individual-level resources, I theorize a second element of resource-empowerment is a group-based resource, stemming from a growing sense of pan-ethnic identity (Espiritu 1992), group consciousness (Masuoka 2006) and linked fate (Junn and Masuoka 2008; Wong et al. 2011). Scholars have long posited that racial and ethnic minorities may rely on group-based resources, such as group consciousness and linked fate to effectively participate in politics (Verba and Nie 1972; Verba, Nie, and Kim 1987; Leighley 2001). In the landmark National Asian American Survey (NAAS) of 2008, naturalized citizens and native-born Asian Americans were found to be far more likely to identify with the ‘Asian American’ racial label (Wong et al. 2011). In an investigation of immigrant generation and voting, Ramakrishnan and Espenshade (2001) find that unlike European immigrants, voting among Asian Americans increases with each subsequent generation. They theorize that the continued social exclusion faced by second generation Asian Americans may contribute to increased participation vis-à-vis second- generation whites. This finding is bolstered by a number of socio-political examinations of second generation Asian Americans that find both a growing sense of pan-ethnic identity and rising interest in politics (Park 2008; Min 2002, 2006; Kibria 2003; Sears et al. 2003; Ramakrishnan 2005). Junn & Masuoka (2008) furthered this body of research in their assessment of group consciousness among Asian Americans. In a survey experiment that primes Asian Americans and African Americans with images of co-ethnic cabinet members as a descriptive representation stimulus, they find Asian Americans primed with these images to exhibit a sense of closeness to one’s own racial group to be near the same level as African Americans who have not been primed. They conclude that Asian American identity is dynamic and malleable and is Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 22 the product of a “complex interaction between policies of the state, institutions, political economy and the stereotypes that result to create incentives for people categorized by race to either adopt or turn away from a group-based political identity,” (p. 734). Furthermore, Kuo, Malhotra and Mo (2016) found the shared experience of social exclusion to be correlated with partisan identity among Asian Americans. The totality of this research suggests that while national-origin considerations are important within the Asian American community, they are not exclusive from the development of pan-ethnic shared group consciousness that is explicitly political in nature and would lead to the expectation of a mobilization effect between Asian American voters and candidates. While Asian American group consciousness has been shown to be dynamic, layered, malleable and increasing, Asian Americans across generations also continue to strongly identify with their national-origin identities such as Korean American, Indian American or Japanese American (Ramakrishnan et al. 2017; Wong et al. 2011; Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004). Tam (1995) has warned that Asian Americans are not a monolith and research that relies on an assumption of homogeneity and aggregates all Asian Americans can obscure important distinctions between subgroups. For example, Kim & Lee (2001) point to competition between various Asian American country of origin groups in policy debates that have left Chinese Americans at odds with Korean and Filipino Americans. Alternatively, field experiments measuring the efficacy of get out the vote campaigns such as phone banking, mailers and door knocking all stress the need for language appropriate communications to activate voters (Wong 2005; Garcia Bedolla and Michelson 2012; Green and Gerber 2015). Additionally, Schildkraut (2013) finds Asian American survey respondents who do identify primarily with their country of origin group and are less acculturated are more likely than others to prefer co-ethnic Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 23 representation. Given this proclivity toward national-origin identities, I theorize that voter turnout will increase with the presence of a co-ethnic Asian American candidate of the same national origin. Thus, the novel contribution of this study is to empirically consider Asian Americans both by country of origin subgroups and as a pan-ethnic group. I theorize that this combination of group-based resources as a dynamic and growing racialized group with the traditional individual-based resources associated with political participation underscore Asian American political participation in the twenty-first century. This hypothesis stands in contrast to earlier studies of Asian American political participation in the 1980s. Uhlaner, Kiewiet & Cain (1982), for example, found that despite high educational attainment and rising-income levels, Asian Americans’ participation to be strikingly low. However, much has changed for Asian Americans in California over the last three decades. With the increased length of residency, Asian Americans have become further entrenched in the American political sphere and their rising numbers may have shifted their assessment of the ability to influence the outcome of an election. These changes, thus, substantiate the claim that the presence of an Asian American on the ballot should result in observable Asian American voter mobilization. HYPOTHESES If the concepts of shared ethnicity, group consciousness or linked fate are inconsequential to Asian American voters, then co-ethnic candidates should have little impact on their voting calculus. I argue the combination of resources and empowerment as a racialized group underscores California Asian American voters in the current context and we should, therefore, expect to see higher levels of Asian American turnout when an Asian American is running. Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 24 I conduct this analysis using data from the California State Assembly. The California Assembly is comprised of eighty seats, and like the House of Representatives, legislators stand for re-election every two years. The state legislature provides an ideal geographic unit, with districts with large concentrations of Asian Americans. While similar studies of Latinos find a co-ethnic mobilization relationship only to occur in districts with a large proportion of Latinos (Fraga 2016), overlapping majority-minority districts (Barreto, Segura & Woods 2007), and viable candidates (Barreto 2007), I maintain that the combination of individual and group-based resources underlying Asian American political participation in the current era makes such a distinction unnecessary in their case. Indeed, Geron & Lai (2002) find that the percentage of the ethnic population in a district is a stronger determinant for the election of Latino politicians than for Asian American politicians. Nevertheless, an assessment of the role of district composition, operationalized as the percentage of citizen voting age population, is available in appendix Table 1A. This hypothesis-driven research design, suggests that co-ethnic mobilization will occur despite partisan attachments. This assertion is based on prior research that suggests the nature of and attachment to partisanship operates quite differently for Asian Americans. Hajnal & Lee (2011), for example, contend that partisanship is shaped by factors such as identity, ideology and information. They find that racial minorities respond to these factors in distinct ways that may make nonpartisanship a rationally adaptive strategy for Asian American voters, particularly if voters feel shut out or ignored by the major parties, as national surveys of Asian Americans have consistently found (Masuoka et al. 2018; Ramakrishnan et al. 2017). This research is bolstered by the finding that nearly a third of Asian American voters register with no party affiliation (Wong et al. 2011). While undeclared voters may have hidden political preferences (Keith et al. Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 25 1992; Klar and Krupnikov 2016), their lack of allegiance to one of the major parties may suggest a willingness to support co-ethnic candidates regardless of their party affiliation. Moreover, even if an independent Asian American voter has a preference for a particular party, that voter may turn out to support a co-ethnic candidate from an alternate party. Figure A: 2016 California Voter Registration by National-Origin Another consideration of consequence is California’s use of a top-two primary. This institutional design allows for two candidates of the same party to advance to the general election, significantly altering the range of partisan options available to California voters. In some instances this has led to electoral contests between two Asian Americans from the same party, a situation not likely found anywhere else in the nation. California’s 27 th assembly district witnessed such a race in 2016 where Democrats Ash Kalra, an Indian American, and Madison Nguyen, a Vietnamese American, vied to represent the northern California city of San Jose. These circumstances provide additional opportunity to examine the boundaries and multiplicity of Asian American identity. I control for these factors in my research design. Given all of these considerations, I make the following two hypotheses: Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 26 H 1 : Asian American voters will have measurably higher rates of voting in an election with a co-ethnic Asian American candidate. H 2 : Asian American voters, identified by their national-origin, will have measurably higher rates of voting for a co-ethnic candidate of the same national-origin. I examine these hypotheses by analyzing voter turnout rates of Asian American voters in California with the presence of Asian American candidates on the ballot. I employ surname- matched data at the precinct level. This data makes estimations of Asian American turnout possible, yet the aggregation at the precinct-level make interpretation of individual-level characteristics of voters difficult. Despite this limitation, this study represents the first of its kind to quantitatively estimate voter turnout of Asian Americans in a context in which there exist a large number of Asian American voters, candidates and districts with high proportions of Asian American residents. DATA & METHODS To conduct this analysis, I first collected race and ethnicity data for all California Assembly general election candidates from 2012 through 2016. 2012 is the inaugural year of three electoral design reforms in California: (1) the switch to the top-two primary; (2) the creation of new district lines following the 2011 redistricting, conducted for the first time by a citizen review board; (3) the adoption of addition term limits for state legislators (Sadhwani and Junn 2018; McGhee 2011; Highton, Huckfeldt, and Hale 2016). Given these electoral design changes, I begin the analysis in 2012 when these changes were enacted. To assess candidate racial identity I use a number of methods consistent with prior studies such as membership in racial or ethnic caucuses, place of birth, self-made statements about racial and ethnic background either in biographies or media publications and endorsements by ethnic organizations. In 2016, Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 27 the California Research Bureau, in conjunction with the California State Library, issued the Demographics in the California Legislature report that identifies the race and gender of current state legislators. This report was used to crosscheck racial and ethnic designations along with the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) election profiles, which list all Latino candidates seeking office in a particular election. The units of analysis in this study are aggregated precincts within each of the eighty assembly districts in the state, across three election years. Data was procured from the Statewide Database (SWDB), held at the UC Berkeley School of Law. This data pulls voter data from all California counties and standardizes the variables across counties. To create the dataset, three unique data files for each year were merged. These include (1) the Statement of Vote, which reports final vote tallies for each candidate from all counties and certified by the Secretary of State; (2) the Registration file, which reports the number of Asian American and Latino voters registered in each precinct using the surname matching technique; and (3) the Voters file which reports the final vote at the precinct level with surname matching. Candidate racial and ethnic data were then matched on to this voter data. In total, the dataset includes 64,148 precinct observations. The Statewide Database (SWDB), California’s official redistricting database, conducts a surname matching analysis of voter data. Surname matching is a powerful tool used to predict and identify groups based on race and ethnicity and has been used as a research technique for over fifty years. The SWDB uses two surname dictionaries compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and researchers using Social Security records to identify Latino and Asian American voters (Lauderdale and Kestenbaum 2000; McKue 2011). SWDB identifies Asian Americans by six national-origins, representing the largest Asian American subgroups in California and in the Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 28 United States at large. These include Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino. Thus, the account of Asian American voters is constrained to the six largest groups of Asian Americans in the state and the nation and omits other smaller communities, albeit that have a significant presence in California, such as Cambodian Americans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, the Hmong, the Thai, Pacific Islanders or the broader definition of Asians which might include Persians or other Eurasian communities. Despite this limitation, the SWDB is the official database for the State of California. It is used for statewide redistricting purposes, has been featured in peer-reviewed scholarly research 2 , and has been used in numerous Voting Rights Act court cases, including one in 2018 that examined vote dilution for Asian Americans in at large elections for the San Jose County Board of Supervisors. To identify an aggregate measure of Asian American turnout in this study, totals for these six subgroups were summed and analyzed as the proportion of actual voters to total registrants in a precinct. Given the availability of surname matched voter data, the national-origin of Asian American candidates was also coded based on these six subgroups 3 . DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS In total, the dataset observes 58.1 million registered California voters over three election cycles. In the 2016 presidential election year, the dataset identifies 19 million registered voters, 14 million of whom cast a ballot. California registrants preference the Democratic party with 44 percent of registered voters in the dataset identified as Democrats, 26 percent as Republican and 2 For example, see recent publication from Henderson, Sekhon and Titiunik (2016) in Political Analysis, entitled “Cause or Effect? Turnout in Hispanic Majority-Minority Districts.” 3 In one instance a candidate of Indonesian background was coded as Asian-other. He was included in the pan-ethnic Asian turnout model, but is not captured in any of the national-origin specific models. Two mixed race Asian Americans appeared on the ballot. Their race was coded as Asian if their surname appeared in the Asian surname dictionaries. Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 29 24 percent as Independent. Latino voters in 2016 comprise 24 percent of registered voters and Asian Americans account for about 8 percent of registered voters in the database. This percentage of Asian American voters identified by surname matching of six national origin subgroups can be contrasted with the Public Policy Institute of California, which estimates that Asian Americans constitute about 11 percent of likely voters. This discrepancy suggests two possible inferences. First, Asian Americans as a group may have a relatively high turnout rate and second, that the use of the six national origin categories is somewhat of an undercount of Asian American voters. VARIABLES AND DESIGN In this analysis I report ordinary least squares regression with robust standard errors, in which the dependent variable, voter turnout, is measured as the proportion of surname matched Asian American voters in a given precinct to the total number registered in the same precinct. I analyze seven models, examining turnout of voters from all six surname-matched national-origin groups (Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese & Japanese) as well as an aggregated measure of voter turnout for all Asian American voters. The independent variable of interest is the presence of an Asian American on the ballot. In total, an Asian American candidate appeared on the ballot forty-five times over the course of the three elections. Figure B presents the number of times an Asian American candidate ran for state office by national origin. Note that these figures do not necessarily represent unique individuals. The data is collected over three election years and the same incumbent candidate may be counted in all three years. This broad inclusion of candidates allows for an examination of a candidate over the course of his/her career. Because the initial year of analysis, 2012, was Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 30 the first year to follow redistricting, the dataset captures several first time legislators in that year and traces them through six years. Because the unit of analysis is the precinct level, each candidate within the dataset has between 200-400 unique observations, depending upon the number of precincts in a given district. If the presence of an Asian American or national-origin co-ethnic influences Asian American voters, then I expect coefficients for this variable to be positive and significant. Figure B: Asian American Candidates by National Origin, California Assembly 2012-2016 Chinese 15 Filipino 9 Taiwanese 7 Japanese 5 Korean 4 Indian 3 Vietnamese 1 Other Asian 1 In order to best identify the relationship between the dependent variable (Asian American turnout) and the independent variable of interest (presence of a co-ethnic candidate), the model also includes a variety of electoral control measures. A four-point categorical measure of competitiveness (“competitiveness”) was generated from the margin of victory in an election outcome. Justification for the inclusion of such a measure can be found in our rational understanding of voter behavior, given the probability that casting a deciding vote in an election should be higher the closer an election is (Aldrich 1993). Elections that were within five percentage points were coded one, between five and ten percentage points were coded two, between ten and twenty points were coded three and election outcomes with a margin of victory for a candidate was greater than twenty percentage points was coded as four. Candidates running unopposed were coded zero. Dummy variables were also created to control for election year effects, such as the effect of a presidential or senatorial election year, and gender of the Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 31 candidate. If the election was an open seat with no incumbent on the ballot, it was also coded as a dummy variable. A dummy variable (“partisan”) was also created to represent California’s unique top-two primary system, which may result in partisan elections in which either two Republicans or two Democrats appear on the general election ballot. Under these circumstances, voters face constraints that limit their options at the ballot box than in a typical election with candidates from the two major parties, and likely use a different voting calculus to select a candidate to support (Alvarez and Nagler 1997). <Insert Table 1 about here: Asian and Latino Turnout, California Assembly Elections 2012-16> RESULTS Tables 1 through 5 contain the results of the analysis and support the hypotheses that the presence of an Asian American on the ballot stimulates Asian American voter turnout. Pan-Ethnic Asian American Turnout The first column of Table 1 reports the results of multivariate analysis when all six Asian American national origin groups are combined and analyzed given any Asian American candidate appearing on the ballot (variable labeled ‘Co-Ethnic’ refers to Asian American candidates in the Asian American turnout model and Latino candidates in the Latino turnout model). The results indicate that Asian American turnout is 2.32 percentage points higher with the presence of an Asian American candidate on the ballot. That pan-ethnic Asian Americans mobilize for Asian American candidates is in direct contrast to a recent study by Fraga (2016), which found the presence of an Asian American congressional candidate to depress turnout of Asian American voters. In that study, Fraga uses nationwide election data from Catalist to assess turnout rates of whites, African Americans, Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 32 Latinos and Asian Americans. While Fraga makes a significant contribution to the study of Blacks and Latinos, finding that they are more likely to vote as their share of the population increases regardless of candidate race, his analysis of Asian Americans is less certain. First, in his analysis on the role of majority-minority districts and the influence that the proportion of an ethnic group might have on turnout for a co-ethnic candidate, he cautions that Asian Americans have only one majority-minority congressional district in the United States (CA-17). Asian American’s position as a small and dispersed immigrant group nationally may undermine Asian American candidates’ viability in the eyes of voters, who may conclude that their community does not have the votes to support the candidate. Moreover, as Hajnal (2010) has argued, nationwide assessments may not be the best environment in which to observe minority turnout. Examining Asian American voter behavior in California state assembly elections, where there are large concentrations of Asian American voters as well as a relatively large numbers of Asian American candidates offers the opportunity for deeper analysis. Additionally, Fraga warns that the Catalist database he uses to conduct his analysis has high error-rates particularly for the identification of Asian Americans, which may impact his findings (p.106). Difference in Difference Analysis To further probe the effect of a pan-ethnic Asian American candidate on voter mobilization, I conducted a difference in difference analysis using the dataset. This is a quasi- experimental design used to estimate the effect of a specific intervention or treatment using observational data (Card and Krueger 1993). This test isolates the presence of an Asian American candidate as a “treatment” on voter turnout whereas districts with no Asian candidate serve as a control (See Figure A). Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 33 Figure C: Difference in Difference Research Design Year Control Treatment 2012 No Asian Candidate No Asian Candidate 2014 No Asian Candidate No Asian Candidate 2016 No Asian Candidate Asian Candidate N=38 Districts N=3 Districts I analyzed pan-ethnic Asian American turnout in districts that had no Asian American candidate across all three election cycles, and compared that to Asian American turnout in districts with no Asian candidate in 2012 or 2014, but did have an Asian candidate present in 2016. This occurred in three instances – districts 27, 34 and 68. Using linear regression and the same electoral control variables, I find that, indeed, aggregated Asian American turnout is elevated in those districts with Asian candidates in 2016, in comparison to those without an Asian candidate over the three election cycles. Figure B presents a visualization of the difference in difference analysis. Figure D: Results from Difference in Difference Analysis – Observation of Asian American Turnout in Districts with and without Asian American candidate Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 34 <Insert Table 2 about here: Asian American and Latino Turnout with Co-Ethnic Candidates and Interaction with Citizen Voting Age Proportion of District, CA Assembly Election 2012-16> Comparing Pan-Ethnic Asian American and Latino Turnout The second column of Table 1 tests the relationship between Latino turnout with the presence of a Latino candidate on the ballot. Consistent with prior studies, I find no mobilization effect without accounting for the demographic composition of the district. The race and ethnic politics literature has largely concluded that the size and context of the minority population is a key factor in understanding minority mobilization. As discussed previously, these studies have largely examined African American and Latino turnout effects. They find elevated turnout of a given minority community when the statistical model interacts the presence of a co-ethnic candidate with district composition variables such as the percentage of the African American or Latinos in a district or the overlapping nature of majority-minority districts. In other words, the logic of these prior studies suggests that being of a minority community alone is not enough to stimulate turnout for a co-ethnic candidate, but instead living amongst a large proportion of others of your own racial or ethnic group alters the calculus of minority voting behavior. (I replicate these findings using my dataset in Table 2). Yet, the findings presented in Table 1, suggest that Asian American voting behavior cannot be explained using the same logic or statistical modeling applied to other minority groups. The effect of living in a majority-minority district may be different for African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans. Ramirez (2013), for example, has argued that Latino voters in majority-minority districts may benefit from additional on the group pro-active resources that help stimulate voter turnout such as Spanish language media, local non-profit advocacy groups. Such material and psychological benefits may simply not be available to Asian American voters in California, as they represent a more geographically dispersed community. Among the eighty districts in the California legislature, Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 35 eighteen districts are majority Latino districts. In comparison, only two assembly districts are Asian majority districts (district 25 and 49). These findings, thus, suggest that Asian Americans and Latinos behave in measurably different ways and challenge our existing knowledge of minority mobilization. <Insert Table 3 & 4 about here – Table 3: Chinese, Indian and Filipino Turnout with Co-Ethnic Candidates & Table 4: Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese Turnout, California Assembly Elections 2012-16> Asian American Turnout by National Origin Models based on national-origin subgroups also confirm the hypotheses: Chinese, Indian, Filipino and Vietnamese American voters all turn out at higher rates with the presence of a co- ethnic candidate. The results in Tables 3 and 4 show that Chinese American voters turnout is 3.82 percent higher with the presence of a Chinese American candidate, Indian American turnout is 5 percent higher with an Indian candidate and Filipino turnout is 3.84 percent higher with a Filipino candidate. Model 5, which examines Vietnamese turnout, also suggests a 5.7 percentage point increase, however this estimate is drawn from a single election within the dataset that represents the only occurrence of a Vietnamese candidate during the period of analysis. That election was unique because it was an open seat and highly competitive election in which two Democrats advanced to the general election and both were Asian American. Thus, voter turnout of Vietnamese Americans is higher in this particularly competitive election, but to fully comprehend the effect of a co-ethnic candidate, additional cases would need to be observed. Coefficients for Korean and Japanese American models (Table 4) show a smaller effect on turnout. Like studies of Latino and African American turnout, the small percentage of Korean American and Japanese American voters within a particular district might influence their voter calculus, viewing co-ethnic candidates as not having a viable shot to win. For example, this type Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 36 of scenario could have occurred in the Republican-leaning sixtieth assembly district in 2014 when Democrat and Korean American Ken Park challenged Republican incumbent Eric Linder. Not seeing a viable chance for Park’s candidacy to advance, Korean Americans may not have altered their voting behavior to support him, particularly in a nonpresidential election year. The share of Korean American voters still remains relatively small in most assembly districts in comparison to Chinese, Indian and Filipino Americans, yet there is good reason to keep Korean Americans on the radar of future studies. In 2015, David Ryu became the first Korean American elected to the Los Angeles City Council and in a 2017 congressional special election primary that saw more than twenty-five candidates, Korean American Robert Ahn advanced to the general election, though was unable to succeed in that competition. Japanese Americans turnout in the presence of a Japanese American co-ethnic candidate is statistically zero in the model and thus offers a potentially different subgroup test case. What drives this difference in turnout might rely on the unique history and position of Japanese Americans in California. First, Japanese American voters in the state are often third or fourth generation Californians, with a long history in the state which might translate into Japanese Americans being a relatively more acculturated Asian American group. Given this cohort difference, group consciousness might function somewhat differently for them. Looking at the data and the electoral context, the districts where Japanese American candidates were running, was not where many Japanese Americans were living. Three candidates populate the Japanese American turnout model. Mariko Yamada ran in 2012 in district covering Napa and Sonoma where 8 percent of the district Asian American and Japanese Americans comprise less than 1 percent of the district’s population. Similarly, candidate Peter Tateishi also ran in 2012 in the district of Rancho Cordova. While 9 percent of the district was identified as Asian American in Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 37 the dataset, less than 1 percent of voters were identified as Japanese Americans. A similar trend can be found with Al Muratsuchi, a candidate who ran in all three observed election years. His Torrance district has a large Asian American community, in which Asian American voters comprise 24 percent of the district’s electorate. However less than 1 percent of voters are Japanese American. What can be inferred from these district demographics is that Japanese American candidates within the dataset are not running in districts with large Japanese American voter bases. Therefore their strategic outreach to their co-ethnic community is likely not high. Moreover, the lack of an effect, suggests that the case of Japanese Americans is ripe for additional testing. CONSIDERATION OF PARTISANSHIP One potential counterargument for this study is that the effect of a co-ethnic candidate on Asian American turnout may be driven by or be masking a partisan effect, particularly given that California is an electorate that largely favors the Democratic Party. Hajnal and Lee (2010) have argued that nonpartisanship is a rationally adaptive strategy for immigrant voters, particularly if voters feel shut out or ignored by the major parties. This comports with a findings from the National Asian American Survey. In 2016, they find that more than 60 percent of Asian Americans report not being contacted by one of the two major political parties. A pan-ethnic Asian American or national origin co-ethnic will have unique strategies to stimulate and propel Asian American voters to the polls. To further probe the effect of partisan voters, I developed a number of additional models of turnout using surname-matched voters identified by their party registration. I used this to examine turnout among Asian Democrats, Republicans and Independents with the presence of either an Asian Democrat or Republican candidate. Figure C Article 1: Asian American Mobilization Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 38 shows predicted turnout of Asian American voters by party identification. The left plot provides a visualization of predicted turnout when an Asian Democrat is on the ballot and shows that all three subgroups – Asian Democrats, Republicans and Independents – have an increase in turnout with the presence of an Asian American Democrat on the ballot. The right plot shows a similar effect in the presence of an Asian Republican. The graphs suggest that while turnout amongst Asian American voters with no party preference is low in comparison to those who register with a party, these independents show the greatest boost in mobilization. Across both models I find increases amongst all Asian American voters regardless of party identification. In other words, what this data shows is that the presence of an Asian American candidate – even one of another party – has a mobilizing effect on Asian American voters. Full results of the models are available in Table 5. Figure E: Predicted Asian American Turnout by Partisanship Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 39 DISCUSSION The goal of this study was to analyze the impact of co-ethnic candidacy for Asian American voters for the first time. In contrast to extant studies of Latino and African American turnout that have found co-ethnic candidates do not have an independent effect on turnout, I find the reverse to be true of Asian American voters in California. With the presence of a co-ethnic candidate I find a measurable (2.6 point) increase in turnout for Asian Americans aggregated across six national-origin subgroups. In four of those subgroups I find an additional increase in turnout rates for a co-ethnic candidate (Chinese=3.8%; Indian=5%; Filipino=3.8%; Vietnamese=5.7%). In comparison, I find consistent with the literature a negative relationship with turnout for Latinos when not controlling for district composition. These findings raise important consequences for theories of turnout such as empowerment, elite mobilization and resource models, in which, given the evidence presented here, Asian Americans do not fall neatly within one of the predominant theoretical models. While the “empowerment” thesis as proposed by Bobo and Gilliam (1990) has not borne out in data from the African American community for whom the thesis was proposed, the linkage between co-ethnicity and political behavior do bear fruit among Asian American voters. If there was no link between co-ethnic candidates and voters, then I would expect the models would result in null effects. This is not the case and, thus, the evolving nature of Asian Americans as fully participating voting members of the United States must be reconsidered, as the data presented here supports an adapted application of the theory to this case of minority voters. While the evidence suggests empowerment is at play, the findings do not preclude the possibility that elite-level mobilizations could explain increases in Asian American voting. While Asian Americans generally report a low level of communication being received from political Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 40 campaigns (Wong et al. 2011; Ramakrishnan et al. 2017), Asian American candidates likely make significant language appropriate appeals (Lai and Geron 2006; Lai, Kim, and Takeda 2001a; Wong 2008) not captured within the model. These results beg the question: Why do Asian Americans exhibit significantly different political behavior than African Americans or Latinos? One possible explanation for this variation, that I have argued, may come from the classic resource theory of voter turnout and political participation. Given the immigration history of the majority of Asian Americans as highly skilled workers and their families, Asian Americans, on average, occupy a middle to upper income status, are highly educated, pay close attention to the news media, all of which are associated with increased participation, particularly amongst whites. Moreover, while our existing theories separately may not fully explain the picture of Asian American voter behavior presented here, a combination of these theories might shed light on the mechanisms that undergird Asian American political participation. CONCLUSION Asian American communities are growing far beyond the Golden State. Nevada, Texas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, New Jersey and many other states all have growing communities of Asian Americans. With that growth, legislators and candidates are adjusting their campaign and representative tactics to reach communities that are growing as a proportion of their electorate (Lai 2011). In Henderson, Nevada a suburb of Las Vegas, Asian Americans now account for eleven percent of Clark county residents, according to 2015 estimates from the American Community Survey. A recent opening of an Asian American organization drew attendance from two members of Congress and representatives from both of the state’s senators Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 41 looking to court Asian American voters. 4 Nationwide, the majority of Asian Americans is foreign-born and may not be eligible or interested to vote. However, if prior studies are any indication, as years of residence increase and more second generation Asian Americans come of voting age, Asian American voters’ interest and participation in political life will likely increase. Asian Americans in California occupy a unique position as a large community seen for their growing influence in politics. This study represents a step forward in our theorizing and empirical analysis of minority voting behavior. Rather than aggregating all Asian Americans together or only prioritizing national origin subgroups, the findings presented here identify discrete differences across Asian subgroups and offers a comparison of pan-ethnic Asian American political behavior in comparison to Latinos. In addition, the resource-empowerment thesis offers a new theoretical advancement that could serve as the basis of future comparative analysis between Asian Americans and other racial and ethnic groups. 4 See Kudialis, Chris. “Political group catering to Asian, Pacific Islander populations opens in Las Vegas.” The Las Vegas Sun. November 4, 2017. Available online. 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Zhou, Min, Jennifer Lee, Jody Agius Vallejo, Rosaura Tafoya-Estrada, and Yang Sao Xiong. 2008. “Success Attained, Deterred, and Denied: Divergent Pathways to Social Mobility in Los Angeles’s New Second Generation.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 620 (1): 37–61. Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 53 APPENDIX A Asian American Candidates for California Assembly by Year, District and National Origin Year District Name Party National Origin Won Election 2012 4 Mariko Yamada D Japanese Yes 2012 8 Peter Tateishi R Japanese No 2012 9 Richard Pan D Taiwanese Yes 2012 12 Christopher Mateo D Filipino No 2012 13 K. Jeffry Jafri R Indian No 2012 18 Rob Bonta D Filipino Yes 2012 19 Phil Ting D Taiwanese Yes 2012 20 Jennifer Ong D Filipino No 2012 24 Chengzhi “George” Yang R Chinese No 2012 28 Paul Fong D Chinese Yes 2012 37 Das Williams D Indonesian Yes 2012 49 Edwin Chau D Chinese (HK) Yes 2012 49 Matthew Lin R Chinese No 2012 66 Al Muratsuchi D Japanese Yes 2014 9 Darrell Fong D Chinese No 2014 12 Harinder Grewel D Indian No 2014 17 David Chiu D Chinese Yes 2014 18 Rob Bonta D Filipino Yes 2014 19 Phil Ting D Taiwanese Yes 2014 19 Rene Pineda R Filipino No 2014 25 Kansen Chu D Taiwanese Yes 2014 28 Evan Low D Chinese Yes 2014 37 Das Williams D Indonesian Yes 2014 41 Nathaniel Tsai R Chinese No 2014 49 Edwin Chau D Chinese (HK) Yes 2014 55 Ling-Ling Chang R Taiwanese Yes 2014 60 Ken Park D Korean No 2014 65 Young Kim R Korean Yes 2014 66 Al Muratsuchi D Japanese Yes 2016 14 Mae Cendana Torlakson D Filipino No 2016 17 David Chiu D Chinese Yes 2016 18 Rob Bonta D Filipino Yes 2016 19 Phil Ting D Taiwanese Yes 2016 19 Carlos “Chuck” Taylor R Filipino No 2016 20 Luis A. Wong R Latino-Chinese No 2016 25 Kansen Chu D Taiwanese Yes 2016 27 Madison Nguyen D Vietnamese No 2016 27 Ash Kalra D Indian Yes 2016 28 Evan Low D Chinese Yes 2016 34 Vince Fong R Chinese Yes 2016 49 Edwin Chau D Chinese (HK) Yes Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 54 2016 55 Phillip Chen R Chinese Yes 2016 65 Young Kim R Korean No 2016 66 Al Muratsuchi D Japanese Yes 2016 68 Steven S. Choi R Korean Yes 55 ARTICLE II The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity: Evidence from California's Top Two Primary ABSTRACT: Do voters use the race or ethnicity of a candidate in selecting whom to support? The adoption of the top two primary electoral system in California is resulting in a rising number of general elections in which candidates from the same party compete, creating a unique opportunity to study voter behavior without the reliance upon a partisan cue. Taking the case of Asian American voters, I examine ten elections all featuring at least one Asian American candidate. Using surname-matched precinct-level voter data, I use ecological inference to estimate support for candidates based on the national origin of voters. I find a divergence between Asian American voters in their selection of co-ethnic candidates, which suggests that racial identities may influence a voter’s decision-making process. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 56 INTRODUCTION In 2014, Chinese American David Chiu and Latino David Campos squared off in a hotly contested state assembly general election race in Northern California. Both candidates were Democrats, having advanced from California’s top two primary in which the highest vote earners proceed to the general election regardless of party. Chiu narrowly defeated Campos by a margin of 2.2 percent. The race between two racial and ethnic minorities is emblematic of the kind of demographic change that has been occurring in California for the last three decades, and of the change to come across the United States. In this article, I ask was Chiu’s Asian American identity a cue for Asian American voters? Several studies of immigrant political incorporation have suggested that partisanship will outweigh race and ethnicity in candidate preferences (Cain and Kiewiet 1984; DeSipio 1996; Graves and Lee 2000). Other accounts, however, suggest that ethnicity powerfully influences political outcomes (Wolfinger 1965; Hero 1992; Munoz and Henry 1990; Barreto 2010). Using the constraint of California’s co-partisan elections as an analytic tool, I provide an empirical examination of Asian American voting behavior in elections in which partisanship is no longer a reliable cue. I investigate the following questions: Do Asian American voters – a highly diverse community, defined by multiple languages, cultures and countries of origin – support Asian American candidates? If they do, is Asian American voters’ support for Asian American candidates observably divergent from Latino or other voters? Can we expect subgroups of Asian Americans such as the Chinese, Vietnamese or Indian voters to support Asian American candidates of other national origin backgrounds? I engage these questions by examining Asian American candidates in general election state assembly and congressional races in California. California’s top two primary provides an ideal opportunity to examine Asian American voter behavior. Since the reform went into effect in 2012, forty-four assembly-level general elections have featured candidates from the same Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 57 party, or co-partisan elections 5 . To examine co-ethnicity, I turn to a subset of co-partisan races: elections featuring at least one Asian American on the ballot. This includes seven assembly races and two congressional races. While political scientists are rarely concerned with the outcome of a handful of single elections, the institutional constraint of the co-partisan election combined with the significant racial diversity of the districts allows for a novel assessment of voting behavior when the cue of partisanship is no longer present. An analysis of these elections provides insights on the extent to which minority voters may use the race or ethnicity of a candidate to inform their vote choice. In addition, I probe the extent to which Asian Americans diverge along national-origin lines. While numerous scholars have theorized relationships between Asian American candidates and voters, the majority of these studies have relied on survey research (Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004; Lai and Geron 2006; Lai, Kim, and Takeda 2001; Wong et al. 2011). Instead, I turn to surname-matched vote returns that identify Asian Americans by six national origin subgroups: Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean. Taking a novel approach not typically used to study Asian American voters (although see Tam 1995 and Collet 2005), I use ecological inference, the method mandated by courts in Voting Rights Act cases. I estimate support for Asian American candidates in ten elections and identify evidence of voter polarization to support my claim. Within California politics, there are two burgeoning literatures: Scholars seeking to understand the influence of demographic change on political outcomes and scholars seeking to understand the impact of the various institutional reforms such as the shift to the top two primary, the adoption of a citizens redistricting commission and state legislative term limits, that have occurred in recent years. My central claim, that the salience of Asian American identity 5 For a list of the forty-four elections, see Appendix A. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 58 impacts voting behavior, largely draws on the former. I seek to extend our knowledge of Asian Americans voters and the role of co-ethnicity within the racial and ethnic politics and political behavior literatures. I also, however, attempt to engage the electoral institutions literature, including a body of work that has examined the potential role of the top two primary to produce less polarizing, more moderate candidates (McGhee et al. 2014; Alvarez and Sinclair 2012). The two robust scholarly pursuits often run parallel to one another. In this article, I attempt to bridge these two literatures and assert the analytic position that the study of racial politics in California must include a consideration of the institutional and electoral constraints and that no assessment of the impact of electoral design reforms in the diverse minority-majority state of California is complete without an explicit consideration of the mechanisms that undergird minority political participation. The article proceeds as follows: First, I discuss the development of the top two primary electoral system in California and then turn to the literature on voting behavior as it relates to Asian Americans. Next, I describe the method of ecological inference and discuss various diagnostic checks involved in the best practices of the method. Finally, I present my findings and discuss their implications. INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN Most elections in the United States occur in two stages: Candidates are first selected in a primary election and second a representative is selected in a general election from a plurality vote within the district. How candidates are selected in the first primary stage constrains the options voters have to select a representative in the general election stage and may constrain the behavior of legislators after the election (Massicotte, Blais, and Yoshinaka 2004; Alvarez and B. Sinclair 2012; T. Kousser, Phillips, and Shor 2016). The National Conference of State Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 59 Legislatures identifies six different types of primary elections: closed, partially closed, partially open, open to unaffiliated voters, open and top two primaries. The primary institution type in a given state determines which voters can participate in the primary selection of candidates. For example, in Pennsylvania, which operates a closed primary system, a voter must be a registered member of the party to vote in the primary. By definition, this excludes independent or unaffiliated voters and prevents “cross-over” voting by members of other parties (McGhee et al. 2014; Alvarez and Nagler 2002; Nagler 2015; Alvarez and J.A. Sinclair 2015). In 2010, California voters approved Proposition 14, the Top Two Primaries Act, requiring all candidates to run in a single primary, open to all registered voters. The two candidates who emerge as the frontrunners advance to the general election. Numerous studies have examined whether primary institution type can lead to either legislator polarization or moderation. Early assessments found open primaries lead to the election of more moderate candidates (E. R. Gerber and Morton 1998). More recent evaluations, however, have yielded mixed results. In a nationwide assessment, McGhee et al (2014) do not find a meaningful or systematic moderating effect. Specific to California, Alvarez and Sinclair (2015) argue the top-two does produce more moderate winners in some highly competitive districts while Grose (2014) finds moderation to occur in assembly elections, but not in congressional elections. Additional studies in this arena consider the consequences of primary type on representational quality (Ahler, Citrin, and Lenz 2016; T. Kousser, Phillips, and Shor 2016), the behavior of voters as strategic actors (Nagler 2015; Alvarez and Nagler 2002; Leighley and Nagler 2013), and the changes in voters’ information seeking behavior (Sinclair and Wray 2015). Largely missing from these studies, however, is an explicit theory of how the racial dynamics of minority voters might influence the outcome of elections under the constraint of the Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 60 top two primary. Many of the aforementioned accounts operate under the classic assumption that partisanship is the most powerful explanatory variable of participation outcomes (Gerber and Green 1998). Voters in such models, can therefore be analyzed as being a member of one of three main categories: Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Behavioral outcomes under the constraint of the top two primary, which produces atypical electoral possibilities such as two Democrats competing or a Republican and a Libertarian candidate, can, according to such models, be assessed based on individual level partisan identities. Such an approach, however, does not appropriately specify the behavior and partisan identity of minority communities. Racial and ethnic diversity should be considered within our models of partisanship and voting behavior because minority communities are relatively nonpartisan and typically report weak partisan attachments. Hajnal and Lee (2011) have argued, for example, that the ubiquitous adherence to partisan identity within analytic models overshadows the defining contours of political behavior for Asian American and Latino communities. They argue that partisan attachments are a function of our primary political dispositions, or more specifically our social group identities and ideological orientations. They contend that partisanship is shaped by three factors – identity, ideology and information – and that African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and whites respond to these factors in distinct ways. In 2015, California was officially declared a majority- minority state with the number of Latinos surpassing whites 6 . Thus, examinations of California’s top two primary need to explicitly theorize the role of race and ethnicity in an examination of electoral outcomes. In this study I contend that we need to push the boundaries of existing institutional design literature. I advance the analytic perspective that California’s top two primary must be 6 Panzar, Javier. “It’s official: Latinos now outnumber whites in California.” Los Angeles Times. July 8, 2015. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 61 considered in light of the state’s unique position as a majority-minority polity with wide ranging diversity that inherently influences political behavior and outcomes. The primary design allows for opportunities to study voter behavior when partisanship is no longer a cue. Much research has suggested that candidates facing co-partisan elections may moderate their positions to appeal to a wider array of a district’s electorate. An alternative view that I present here, however, is that candidates may make explicit or implicit racial appeals that influence voter behavior in distinct ways. In-language advertising or simply seeing a recognizably ethnic surname on the ballot may influence the candidate selection of voters. I turn to California’s large and heterogeneous Asian American community to examine this concept. ASIAN AMERICANS IN THE ELECTORATE Like Latinos before them, Asian Americans have for some time been considered the “next sleeping giant” of California politics (Ong, Dela Cruz-Viesca, and Nakanishi 2008). Indeed, the Los Angeles Times in 2014 wrote of an Asian American “surge” as Asian Americans were being elected to local, state and national offices across the golden state 7 . Asian Americans have been identified by the U.S. Census Bureau to be the fastest growing immigrant group since the 2000 Census. Such demographic increase has political consequences. Asian Americans comprise 15% of California’s adult population and an estimated 12% of likely voters in the state, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. 8 Over the next quarter century, that number is expected to increasing dramatically. The UCLA Center for the Study of Inequality estimates 7 Decker, Cathleen. “Recent election gains show Asian American voters’ power surge.” Los Angeles Times. March 29, 2015. 8 Baldassare et al. “Just the Facts: Race and Voting in California.” Public Policy Institute of California. August 2017. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 62 the number of Asian Americans registered to vote nationwide will double to about 12 million by 2040 9 . Despite this growth, Asian Americans remain relatively understudied in the political behavior literature. The availability of data and the resource expenditure required to reach a broad cross-section of Asian Americans remains a significant challenge to research efforts, yet one that scholars of Asian American politics all agree is necessary to understand the dynamic nature of this heterogeneous community. Conducting a survey of Asian Americans in the language of their choice requires additional time and money – resources that most national polling organizations are often unable or unwilling to spend. Surveys that do invest in reaching a representative sample of Asian Americans, like the National Asian American Survey (NAAS) and the Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) illuminate the vast diversity within the label of “Asian American”. The NAAS, for example, has identified, variation in direction and strength of partisanship by country of origin (Wong, et al 2011). Disaggregation of the Asian American community into national origin subparts, as these national surveys do, is an essential step forward in uncovering the nuances of Asian American political behavior. Despite this advancement, national surveys remain limited in their ability to capture localized or contextual factors and behaviors. For example, we know little about the differences in candidate preferences of Indian American voters compared to Vietnamese American voters in non- presidential elections and our methods typically rely on qualitative interview accounts to capture such preferences. The use of voter data has remained out of the grasp of scholars of Asian American politics due to the size and diversity of the Asian American community and, as a result, our knowledge and understanding of the community has remained limited. 9 Ong, Paul & Elena Ong. “The Future of Asian America in 2040: Asian American Electorate to Double.” UCLA Center for the Study of Inequality and Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. May 7, 2015. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 63 The present study begins to fill this gap. Unlike most accounts of Asian Americans that rely upon surveys or interviews, I examine precinct level voter data in assembly and congressional district elections where significant numbers of diverse Asian Americans reside. I assert that in the absence of a partisan cue, Asian American voters turn to the race of a candidate and will rally behind an Asian American candidate in comparison to other voters. That a candidate would garner the support of his or her co-ethnic community is not a new concept. In his 1965 examination of Italian and Polish immigrants in New Haven, Wolfinger contended that “the most powerful and visible sign of ethnic political relevance is a fellow-ethnic’s name at the head of the ticket,” (p. 905) As the United States has undergone dramatic demographic change and the number of minority elected officials has grown, a burgeoning scholarly literature has sought to understand the mechanisms of this relationship. For example, some scholars have found that the kinds of resources and ethnic appeals that candidates make to the minority voters may influence mobilization (Guerra 1992; Leighley 2001; Barreto 2010; DeFrancesco Soto and Merolla 2006; Garcia Bedolla and Michelson 2012). Alternatively, research has examined the conditions under which voters would be most likely to support a co-ethnic candidate or favor descriptive representatives by emphasizing individual-level traits such as a sense of linked fate, experience with discrimination, or levels of acculturation (Schildkraut 2013; Casellas and Wallace 2015; Junn and Masuoka 2008; Kuo, Malhotra, and Mo 2017). Still other work has emphasized the need to look at local elections to understand the competition and divergence between minority voters (Collet 2005; Z. L. Hajnal 2009; Trounstine 2009; Z. Hajnal and Trounstine 2005). The totality of this growing literature points to the powerful influence that race and ethnic identity play on a voter’s selection of a candidate. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 64 Asian Americans, however, challenge our understanding of co-ethnicity. Who is an Asian American and who is an Asian American co-ethnic candidate? Is a Japanese American a co- ethnic of a Chinese American? Is an Indian American a co-ethnic of a Vietnamese American? The term “Asian American” is uniquely American; developed overtime first by the Census Bureau and later taken on by Asian American activists seeking to build political power (Espiritu 1992; Aoki and Nakanishi 2001; Lai and Geron 2006; Ancheta 2006). The term describes a vast array of individuals in the United States who trace their origins to the Asian continent (Nakanishi 1991) and is applied regardless of being native or foreign born; of immigration status, naturalization status, or the number of years of residency. Highly skilled H1b visa holders often from East or South Asia are Asian American, just as refugees and asylees from the Vietnam War are Asian American. Foundational studies in political science on the impact of socioeconomic indicators such as income and education on political participation would anticipate that subgroups within the Asian American identity would have different participation outcomes (Verba and Nie 1972; Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Verba et al. 1995; Nie, Junn, and Stehlik- Barry 1996; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993), yet to date probing national origin distinctions through vote returns has remained relatively elusive. Thus, for Asian Americans, we must ask, is a racialized identity salient for Asian American political behavior outcomes? I contend that Asian American identity is salient at the ballot box. I theorize that when partisanship is no longer a cue, as is the case in a number of elections arising from California’s top two primary system, Asian American voters’ preference for a co-ethnic candidate can be measurably observed as a pan-ethnic group. Yet, given the vast diversity among Asian Americans, the importance of national origin distinctions remains salient. In the rare occasion of Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 65 two Asian American candidates from different national origins, I identify polarization and divergence among Asian Americans along national origin lines. HYPOTHESES I argue that Asian American voters rally their support behind Asian American candidates. Using ecological regression, I contend that a majority of Asian American voters will support Asian American candidates. To conduct this analysis, I observe and estimate Asian American voting patterns in California state assembly and congressional races. I draw upon surname matched voter data available from California’s Statewide Database (SWDB) held the UC Berkeley School of Law. The data identifies six national origin categories of Asian Americans: Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indian, Korean and Japanese. To isolate candidate choice from the constraints of partisanship and incumbency, I analyze open seat elections in which at least one Asian American candidate competes in a general election against a candidate of the same party. Incumbency has long been considered a significant advantage over challengers (Stokes and Miller 1962; Erikson 1971; Gelman and King 1990). Incumbency has been theorized to influence voters by adding to the recognizability of candidates. It also may influence rational voting choices by moving some voters away from their candidate of choice because they assume the candidate’s chances of defeating an incumbent are slim. By focusing only on open seat elections, I remove the powerful influence of incumbency on voters. In addition, I rely on California’s top two primary system to analyze only those races between candidates of the same party, for party identification is thought to powerfully influence a voter’s candidate choice and political behavior. These constraints occur in seven assembly elections since the adoption of the top two primary system in 2012. Four of these seven Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 66 competitions were highly competitive elections with the results falling within 2.2 percentage points or less. Given these considerations, I make an initial hypothesis: H 1 : A majority of Asian American voters will support Asian American candidates in open seat, co-partisan elections. Additionally, I theorize that national origin subgroups are a powerful co-ethnic bond that will result in enhanced support for a candidate of the same national-origin group. I examine four elections in districts with large communities of voters from a single national origin group. I define this by at least ten thousand voters identified within the surname-matched data. While ten thousand is a somewhat arbitrary threshold of voters, it is a large enough subsample to ecologically estimate support for a candidate. To probe the distinction between national origin subgroups of Asian Americans, I make a second hypothesis: H 2 : A majority of Asian American voters, identified by their national origin, will support co-ethnic candidates of the same national origin. Finally, I examine the behavior of Asian American voters when presented the option between two Asian American candidates. I examine three consecutive congressional elections in California’s Silicon Valley, the only Asian majority-minority district in the continental United States. This is the one congressional district in the nation that has seen multiple elections in which two Asian American candidates compete. In 2016, Indian American Democrat Ro Khanna ousted longtime incumbent and the former chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Japanese American Mike Honda, in a co-partisan election. In an overlapping state assembly district, Indian American Ash Kalra also defeated Vietnamese American Madison Nguyen in the same year. I theorize that when Asian Americans of different national origin Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 67 backgrounds compete, the preferences of Asian American voters will observably diverge. Vast communities of Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans and Filipino Americans allow for an assessment of voter preference based on national origin, which underscores my third hypothesis: H 3 : Asian American voters will diverge in observable national origin majorities in support for candidates. I examine these hypotheses by estimating support for candidates by race and ethnicity in ten elections in California. RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY To conduct this analysis, I first compiled a database for all California Assembly general election candidates from 2012 through 2016 that captured general election candidate race and ethnicity, partisanship, and incumbency. In addition, I used certified election outcomes from the Secretary of State to identify the margin of competiveness for each election. For California’s eighty-seat assembly over three years, this includes data on 240 total elections. 2012 was the inaugural year of three electoral design reforms in California: (1) the switch to the top-two primary; (2) the creation of new district lines following the 2011 redistricting, conducted for the first time by a citizen review board; (3) the adoption of addition term limits for state legislators. Given these changes, the inclusion of data from years prior to 2012 would not allow for comparable districts and cases. To assess candidate racial identity I use a number of methods consistent with prior studies such as membership in racial or ethnic caucuses, place of birth, self- made statements about racial and ethnic background either in biographies or media publications and endorsements by ethnic organizations (Fraga 2016). In 2016, the California Research Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 68 Bureau, in conjunction with the California State Library, issued the Demographics in the California Legislature report that identifies the race and gender of current state legislators. This report was used to crosscheck racial and ethnic designations. The units of analysis in this study are aggregated precincts within each of seven assembly districts and one congressional district over three elections. Data was procured from the Statewide Database (SWDB), held at the UC Berkeley School of Law. This dataset pulls vote returns from all California counties and standardizes the variables across counties. To conduct the estimation, two unique data files for each election were merged. These include (1) the Statement of Vote, which reports final vote tallies for each candidate from all counties and certified by the Secretary of State and is used to derive the dependent variable, the percentage of the total vote a particular candidate has received in each precinct and (2) the Voters file which reports the final vote with surname matching and is used to derive the independent variable, the percentage of Asian American voters within a precinct. The Statewide Database (SWDB), California’s official redistricting database, conducts surname-matching analysis of voter data. While surname matching is not a perfect science, it allows researchers to identify voters based on ethnic and typical surname. The SWDB uses two surname dictionaries compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau to identify Latino and Asian American voters (Lauderdale and Kestenbaum 2000; McKue 2011). SWDB identifies Asian Americans by six national-origins: Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino. To identify an aggregate measure of Asian American candidate choice, totals for these six subgroups were summed. Moreover, the account of Asian American voters is an underestimate because it is limited to these six groups and omits important communities that have a significant presence in California such as Cambodian Americans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, the Hmong, the Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 69 Thai, Pacific Islanders or the broader definition of Asians which might include Persians, Armenians or other Eurasian communities. Given the availability of surname matched voter data, the national-origin of Asian American candidates was also coded based on these six subgroups. The data reported is at the level of individuals who actually voted either in person or by mail. In other parts of the country and in the past, such data was not available. In the absence of surname matched voter returns, studies must rely on a higher level of aggregation such as citizen voting age population from the US Census Bureau or voter registration (Imai and Khanna 2016; Shah and Davis 2017). California, however, is a pioneer in voter data collection and maintenance and thus I use this more detailed data. Case Selection Between 2012 and 2016, an Asian American has appeared on the state assembly ballot forty-five times. However, to examine Asian American voter behavior through the lens of race and not partisanship, I turn to assembly elections that meet three criteria: (1) At least one Asian American candidate; (2) Open seat elections with no incumbent on the ballot and (3) Co-partisan elections, in which both general election candidates are from the same party. An analysis of such elections provides insights on the extent to which minority voters may use the race or ethnicity of a candidate to inform their vote choice. This situation occurred seven times in California’s state assembly, all featuring general elections between two Democrats. These include three elections in 2012, two in 2014 and two in 2016. In 2012, Rob Bonta (AD-18) was the first Filipino American elected to the state’s legislature to represent the East Bay, having narrowly defeated Abel Guillen, a Latino candidate. In neighboring district 19 representing portions of San Francisco, Phil Ting easily defeated Caucasian candidate Michael Breyer, while Jennifer Ong, who would have been the first Filipina elected to the assembly, was narrowly defeated by .6 Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 70 points by Bill Quirk in district 20. In another highly competitive race in 2014 David Chiu defeated David Campos, while Darrell Fong was easily defeated by African American candidate Jim Cooper in district 9. In 2016, Filipina American and award-winning singer Mae Cendana Torlakson was easily defeated by Tim Grayson in district 14. 2016 also saw the first assembly match-up between two Asian Americans of differing national origin backgrounds in an open seat, co-partisan election. Indian American Ash Kalra narrowly defeated Vietnamese American Madison Nguyen. In congressional competitions, no elections have yet occurred that feature all three criteria of open seat, co-partisan elections featuring at least one Asian American candidate. Instead, I conduct a comparative analysis to examine three consecutive elections from the nation’s only majority-minority Asian American district between 2012 and 2016. In 2012 Democrat incumbent Mike Honda faced a challenge from Chinese American Republican Evelyn Li. Analysis of this election allows for the comparative observation of the role of partisanship among Asian American voters, the majority of whom favored Honda. In 2014, Honda faced a challenge from within his own party: Indian American Ro Khanna. Khanna was unsuccessful in his midterm election challenge, but returned again in 2016 to ouster Honda. The larger size of a congressional electorate allows for a more robust analysis of candidate preference by national origin, specifically by estimating support for candidates by voter of Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese national origin. Method of Analysis I estimate support for a candidate by race and ethnicity of voters using ecological inference, a statistical method of inferring individual behavior from aggregate data. Because the United States operates under a secret ballot system, we have no way of knowing for certain how Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 71 individuals vote. Surveys and exit polls sufficiently capture results in national or statewide elections, but rarely capture enough localized data to be informative in local elections and often are not adequately representative of minority communities (Arvizu and Garcia 1996; Tate 1991; Lien 2004). In the 1950’s Goodman (1953; 1959) identified a basic bivariate regression he termed “ecological regression” for the use of “ecological data,” or variables that describe groups such as race. Goodman’s bivariate ecological regression uses the method of bounds to estimate voting by ethnic group by asking how precincts that were 100 percent non-Asian or 100 percent Asian would have voted, on average (J. M. Kousser 2001). The analysis is an ordinary least squares model that takes the simple, linear form Y=a + bX + e, where Y, the dependent variable, is the percentage of the total vote that a particular candidate receives; and X, the independent variable, is the percentage of Asian voters. The variable a, or the point at which the regression line intercepts the left vertical axis, estimates the percentage of the non-Asians who voted for a candidate. The variable b is the slope of the regression line and e represents a margin of error. The sum of a + b is used as the estimate of the percentage of Asians who voted for a particular candidate. Using this method, I plot the percentage of the vote for each candidate against the percentage of the voters in the precinct who had Asian surnames. Across the elections, the graphs indicate that as the percentage of Asian voters increased, the percentage of the vote for the Asian candidate also increased (See Appendix B). The critiques of ecological regression are well documented in the literature. Robinson (1950) famously argued that relying on aggregate data to infer individual behavior may be misleading, one of the most obvious deficiencies being some vote estimates that fall beyond 100% of the vote (Ferree 2004; Herron and Shotts 2003). Nonetheless, ecological regression has been the hallmark method of analysis of Voting Rights Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 72 cases in the courts throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s to identify levels of racially polarized voting and vote dilution among minority communities (Grofman 1991, 1992). Since that time, significant improvements have been made to both the statistical logic of the method and advancements in computing technology. In response to criticism of the method’s unreliability, Gary King (1997) advanced an ecological inference (EI) solution building off an assumption of data being distributed not on a normal curve, but instead a ‘truncated normal distribution’ (King 1997; Cho 1998; J. M. Kousser 2001). Whereas the parameters of a normal distribution can range from plus infinity to minus infinity – thereby creating estimates that fall beyond 100% of a vote – King’s truncated distribution limits vote estimations to the 0-100 range. In addition, King’s procedure takes into account demographic bounds not at the district level, but at the precinct level, improving the precision of estimation at each and every precinct. King’s method was largely developed for a 2 x 2 examination of African American and white voters and two candidates. As the United States demographic landscape transformed, a 2 x 2 table is no longer sufficient to analyze the role of emergent Latino and Asian American voting communities. King et al (1999) and Rosen et al (2001) extended King’s 1997 solution using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to advance a hierarchical Bayesian “rows by columns” (R x C) approach that could better accommodate multiple candidates, races and ethnicities. At its inception, the iterative approach was limited by computing ability. Today, however, EI and R x C no longer require supercomputing, making them a more accessible approach for researchers. The two methods have been used extensively in Voting Rights Act cases, including a recent case from the city of Santa Clara, California to examine vote dilution of Asian Americans 10 . 10 For a good example of the use of these methods for Asian Americans see Ladonna Yumori Kaku et al vs. City of Santa Clara decided on May 15, 2018. In this case, the judge found a “preponderance of evidence” of Asian Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 73 Despite these advancements, Tam Cho & Gaines (2004) urge researchers to proceed with caution when developing ecological inference estimations. They advise three necessary conditions: First, that aggregate data must be “informative.” To that end, they recommend the use of tomography plots as a diagnostic test of the distribution of the data. The tomography lines plot all logically possible pairs of parametric values (in this case, the percentage of the Asian vote to the non-Asian vote for each candidate) and are deemed informative if there is a “general area of intersection” of the lines (p.155). Second, they urge a test of aggregation bias to ensure that estimation parameters (betas) are not correlated with the regressors (the X variable). They recommend a simple test to compare EI results to Goodman’s OLS results. While the two methods will produce variations in standard errors, OLS will provide “reasonable, unbiased and consistent estimates” of the parameters if no aggregation bias exists (p.156; see also Goodman 1953). Finally, Tam Cho and Gaines, rightly, urge researchers in their pursuit of aggregate data analysis to have a microtheory that is well situated and sensitive to existing knowledge and theory of voting behavior and candidate strategy. In the study of Asian American voting behavior, I heed these warnings. For this study, I employ the R package eiCompare, which conducts Goodman, King EI and R x C testing in addition to generating tomography plots (Collingwood et al. 2016). In effect, the eiCompare package aids in the diagnostics called for by Tam Cho & Gaines’ first two necessary conditions. Tomography plots were developed for each of the elections of consideration and provide evidence of a “general area of intersection” across all elections (See Appendix C). Goodman and EI comparisons were also generated and found to be “reasonable” (See Appendix B Goodman), thus satisfying these minimum conditions called for by Tam Cho and Gaines. Finally, to Tam American vote dilution in the at-large city council election system. His decision relied upon EI and R x C estimations and statistical testimony of Caltech Professor J. Morgan Kousser. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 74 Cho and Gaines’ call for a well-situated theory, I have argued, in this article and elsewhere (see Article 1 – Asian American Mobilization) we should expect to see pan-ethnic convergence among Asian Americans in their voting behavior given rising levels of linked fate as a pan-ethnic group. Consistent with existing survey research, that national origin identities have remained salient for Asian Americans and do influence political behavior outcomes. Thus, my hypotheses seek to confirm what the existing literature would expect, but what has not previously been studied. Having carefully considered this diagnostic assessment of the data, I proceed to calculate estimations of vote choice using the R x C method in the elections identified for Asian Americans, Latinos and a group of other voters to test my hypothesis that a majority of Asian American voters will support Asian American candidates under the constraint of co-partisan elections. I use bivariate ecological inference (the King method) to compute sub-national assessments of Asian American voters in those districts in which at least ten thousand voters can be identified by their national origin. These include Chinese American voters district 19 in 2012 and district 17 in 2014; Vietnamese Americans in district 27 in 2016; and Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese voters in the 17 th congressional district in 2012 and 2016. RESULTS The results of the ecological inference estimations for support for candidates by race and ethnicity are presented in Tables 1 and 2. They show that under the constraint of a partisan election in which candidates from the same party compete, thereby eliminating a differentiated partisan cue, a majority of Asian Americans rally behind an Asian American candidate in all elections observed. The results further show that Asian Americans diverge as a pan-ethnic group in comparison from Latinos or other voters, thus providing support for the first hypothesis. Asian Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 75 American candidates won four of the seven co-partisan, open seat assembly elections in the analysis. Among those elections with only one Asian American on the ballot, three of the elections were highly competitive races, with candidates securing a victory with a mere handful of votes. These include districts 18 and 20 in 2012 and district 17 in 2014. In those instances in which national-origin preferences can be estimated, such as Chinese Americans in the election of Phil Ting (district 19) and David Chiu (district 17) and Vietnamese Americans in the competition between Ash Kalra and Madison Nguyen (district 27), enhanced levels of national origin cohesion and support for co-ethnic candidates can be observed among national origin groups. Finally, examination of California’s 17 th congressional district allows for the observation of divergence between national origin groups when offered two Asian American candidates. While Chinese and Indian American voters rally behind Khanna in 2016, Vietnamese American and Latino voters coalesce around Honda, thus providing support for the third hypothesis. Pan-ethnic Asian American Voters The RxC estimates in the 2014 competition in district 17 between Chinese American David Chiu and Latino David Campos is emblematic of a racialized break down in the vote. 90 percent of Asian American voters supported Chiu while 98 percent of Latino voters supported Campos. Other voters, including non-Hispanic whites, African Americans, Native Americans and others not identifiable in the surname match process, were evenly split between the two candidates. The number of actual Asian American voters (21,790) in the election surpassed the number of Latinos (15,177) by about six thousand. While the majority of Asian American voters in the seventeenth assembly district are Chinese American, at least one thousand Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean American voters and more than two thousand Filipino voters also participated in the 2014 election. Figure 1 and 2 plot the percent of the precinct vote for Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 76 David Chiu by the percent of Asian and Latino voters in each precinct. The graphs provide a visual interpretation that as the number of Asian American voters increases in a precinct, support for the Asian candidate also increases. The reverse relationship is found with Latino voters in this election: as the number of Latino voters in a precinct increases, support for Chiu declines. The results provide substantiation of the hypothesis that Asian American voters, from various national origin subgroups, support the Asian American candidate. Figure 1: Scatterplot of precinct votes for David Chiu by Percent of Asian American voters in precinct & fitted regression line .2 .4 .6 .8 1 Percent of Vote for Chiu 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 Percent of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values chiu_per Assembly District 17, 2014 General Election Asian American Vote for Chiu Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 77 Figure 2: Scatterplot of precinct votes for David Chiu by Percent of Latino voters in precinct & fitted regression line The finding raises important questions about the role of minority turnout and the proportion of minority voters in a district. Hajnal & Troustine (2005) have argued that lower turnout in non-national elections can lead to substantial reductions in the representation of minorities. If the open seat had occurred in a presidential year could higher Latino turnout have led to a Campos win or is the district more heavily Asian? Was Asian or Latino turnout mobilized by the presence of a Asian American and Latino candidate? While ecological inference is informative about how those who turned out behaved, it is not well suited to examine turnout. Comparative analysis of the descriptive statistics of elections can provide useful insights into the composition of the district electorate and signal variation in turnout between presidential and midterm election years. In fact, both Asian (40,869) and Latino (31,165) turnout in the district was nearly double in 2016. .2 .4 .6 .8 1 Percent of Vote for Chiu 0 .1 .2 .3 .4 Percent of Latino Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values chiu_per Assembly District 17, 2014 General Election Latino Vote for Chiu Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 78 In a similarly competitive match up in 2012, Filipino American Rob Bonta inched out Latino Abel Guillen by a margin of one percent. Newspaper articles chronicling the competition suggested a highly racialized environment, with Bonta securing the endorsements of various Asian American legislators, while notable Latino legislators endorsed Guillen 11 . The majority of Asian American voters (63%) supported Bonta, providing additional support for my first hypothesis. Like the Chiu-Campos race, other voters were evenly split. The estimates for Latino voters, however, suggest support for the Latino candidate received a more limited amount of co- ethnic support (52.9%) than in the Chiu-Campos race. We can speculate a number of possible reasons for this lower level of Latino support for Guillen. For example, broader name recognition for Bonta could contribute to greater support (Abramowitz 1975). Bonta was the Vice Mayor of the city of Alameda and may have had the privilege of additional name recognition and familiarity with voters than Guillen, who at the time served as a trustee of the Peralta Community College. Bonta, who if elected, would be the first Filipino American elected to the California Assembly, and may have received additional support or turnout as an historic first for the community (Simien 2015) given the two candidates from the same party shared a similar stance on many substantive policy issues. Bonta may have also won over Latino voters with his working class, immigrant personal background. His biography recounts his birth in the Philippines, followed by his adolescence with his parents who were farm workers and civil rights activists, and having lived “in a trailer just hundreds of yards from César Chávez’s home” 12 . It is also possible that Bonta, a somewhat more moderate candidate, in comparison to Guillen’s 11 Tavares, Steven. “Two Candidates in 18 th Assembly District Rush to Bolster their Base.” The East Bay Citizen. February 17, 2012. 12 See Assemblymember Rob Bonta’s biography, available at https://a18.asmdc.org/biography Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 79 closeness with the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement 13 , may have garnered the support of Republicans and undeclared voters in the district who, combined, accounted for 27 percent (56,795) of actual voters. Finally, an alternative explanation for the lower Latino support for Guillen in comparison to Campos may be the misidentification of Latino and Filipino voters using surname matching. The Philippines was under Spanish colonial rule for more than four hundred years, resulting in many similar surnames as individuals from Latin America. While surname matching is a powerful tool to help identify the race and ethnicity of individuals, being especially used in the health care industry, the mischaracterization of Filipinos as Latinos and vice versa has been widely documented (Perez-Stable et al 1995; Fiscella and Fremont 2006; McCue 2011). A possible scenario is that a number of Filipino voters in the district are being identified as Latinos. To extrapolate from the findings from the Campos-Chiu election, Latinos were likely supporting Guillen at a rate higher than 52 percent, while Filipinos – many being identified as Latinos through surname matching – were likely supporting Bonta, thus driving down the Latino estimation for Guillen and muting the Asian American support for Bonta. In another hotly contested race, Caucasian American Bill Quirk narrowly defeated Jennifer Ong in district 20. Ecological inference analysis provides additional support for the first hypothesis: 62 percent of Asian American voters favored Ong over Quirk, while other voters are fairly evenly split (50.6-49.4 percent), suggesting that a majority of Asian American voters rallied behind Filipina Democrat Jennifer Ong over Quirk, also a Democrat. Like Bonta, this may be a conservative estimate of Asian American support if Filipinos in the district were misidentified in the surname-matching process. Surname matching identified 6,332 Filipino American voters in the election with the total number of Asian American and Latino voters 13 Duckworth, Anna. “East Bay College District to Divest from Big Banks.” CBS San Francisco Bay Area. November 19, 2011. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 80 roughly split: Latino voters comprised 15 percent of the 2012 electorate while Asian Americans accounted for 12 percent. The results also find that a majority of Latino voters favored Quirk (55.7 percent). Examining the results from these highly competitive races where candidates both have a viable chance of winning the election allows us to uncover the influence of a racialized group acting together. In three less competitive elections, we can still observe a majority of Asian American voters support for Asian American candidates. However, in less competitive elections the viability of a candidate may influence a voter's decision-making process at the ballot box (Abramowitz 1989). Can co-ethnic support help secure a victory for a candidate? In 2012, Chinese American Phil Ting easily defeated Caucasian American Michael Breyer in the 18 th district with support from nearly 80 percent of Asian American voters. This competition allows for the observation of the influence of the Asian American vote, as support for Ting from Latinos and other voters was far more modest (56 percent and 52 percent respectively). These estimates suggest that without the strong support of the pan-Asian American community, Ting may have faced a far more competitive race. In 2014, African American Jim Cooper defeated Chinese American Darrell Fong by a margin of eleven points in assembly district 9. Cooper secured 80 percent of the Latino vote while support from other voters was more muted at 53 percent. Additional aggregation of the "other category" could be informative to better visualize divergence between Caucasian and African American voters. Finally in 2016, Filipina singer Mae Cendaña Torlakson was unable to defeat Caucasian American Tim Grayson, who defeated her by a margin of twenty-three points. Nevertheless, Cendaña Torlakson garnered the majority of the Asian American vote, while we can observe a clear preference for Grayson among Latinos and other voters. In all three elections, the Asian American candidate garnered the majority of support Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 81 from pan-Asian voters, who observably diverge as a voting bloc from Latino and other voters. Whether the Asian American candidate can secure a victory may simply depend on the size of the Asian American electorate within the district. In district 18, with 23 percent of Asian Americans casting a ballot in 2012, Ting easily secured a victory. In districts 9 and 14, where Asian Americans comprised only 14 and 8 percent of the electorates in the given years, the Asian American candidates were less successful. National Origin Voters The second hypothesis rests on the theory that the national origin identities of voters will influence their choice in candidate. I conduct ecological inference analysis in those districts with at least ten thousand voters identified by national origin. I find strong evidence of the hypothesis that voters will support co-ethnic candidates of the same national origin. More than 80 percent of Chinese Americans in district 18 lent their support to Chinese American candidate Phil Ting in 2012, while an estimated 93 percent supported David Chiu in 2014 in district 17. A similarly high level of support can be found in the 2016 congressional race, in which nearly 90 percent of Indian American voters supported the Indian American candidate, Ro Khanna. In assembly district 27 Vietnamese American candidate Madison Nguyen also received a majority of support for Vietnamese American voters, although not at the same impressively high levels. The more modest support from the Vietnamese community should come as no surprise. In 2009, some within the Vietnamese community attempted to recall Nguyen from her seat on the San Jose City Council after a bitter dispute over naming a shopping center "Little Saigon Business District," which Nguyen had opposed 14 . The majority support for co-ethnic candidates substantiates my 14 Theriault, Denis. "San Jose Councilwoman Madison Nguyen survives bitter recall attempt." The Mercury Sun. March 3, 2009. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 82 claim that co-ethnicity within the Asian American at the national origin level serves as a guide to voters. Divergence among Asian American voters The third hypothesis anticipates that when Asian Americans compete, divergence would be found at the national origin level. In the 27 th assembly district race in 2016, Asian Americans appear to be evenly split between Indian American Ash Kalra, who garnered 48.5 percent of the Asian American vote and Madison Nguyen with 51.5 percent. While Nguyen had a slight lead over Kalra amongst Asian Americans, Kalra appeared to do better amongst Latinos (55.5 percent) and other voters (53 percent). The even split among Asian American voters raises questions about the extent to which voters diverged in their candidate preference based on national origin. As previously mentioned, a majority of Vietnamese American voters – who comprised 11 percent of the district's actual voters in 2016 – supported Nguyen. Unfortunately, Indian Americans comprised only 2.8 percent of the total electorate (5,425 voters), too small of a sample to be analyzed with ecological inference. Analyzing at the larger congressional district level, however, provides additional opportunity to assess the third hypothesis. In California's congressional district 17, Asian Americans account for 52.9 percent of the district's total population, according to the American Community Survey's 2015 estimates. The number of Chinese voters (34,055) alone in 2016 was nearly equivalent to the number of Latino voters (34,538) in the district. The number of decline to state voters among Asian American voters in the district is high, with more Asian Americans with no party preference turning out than either registered Democrats or Republicans in 2016. The ecological inference estimates, paint a picture of how Honda, a long-time incumbent, garnered a coalition of support in 2012 that included a majority of Asian Americans. In the midterm elections of 2014, those Asian Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 83 American voters who turned out were divided half supporting the incumbent and half supporting his Democratic challenger, Ro Khanna. The 2016 estimates suggest that observable divergence among Asian American voters at the national origin level contributed to Honda's defeat. In 2012, Honda won reelection easily against Chinese-American Republican challenger Evelyn Li. The district, which voted strongly in favor of Obama, lent its support to incumbent Democrat Honda. With two Democrats on the general election ballot in 2014, both of Asian- American heritage, voters were offered a different set of options. The estimations suggest that Honda’s win in 2014 was heavily reliant upon Latino support, while Asian Americans and voters of other races and ethnicities began to shift their support toward Khanna. Two years later, Honda continued to receive strong support from Latino voters in the district, but a coalition of Asian American and other voters moved heavily toward Khanna, propelled by a larger presidential year turnout. Disaggregation of Asian-American voters by country of origin finds that Chinese Americans and Indian Americans voted heavily in favor of Khanna in 2016. An estimated 81 percent of Chinese-American voters and 90 percent of Indian-American voters in the district lent their support to Khanna in 2016, while Honda garnered an estimated 70.41 percent of Vietnamese Americans’ support. Unfortunately, while ecological inference estimates can help uncover divergence among national origin subgroups, it cannot provide insights about why Indian and Chinese American voters shifted their support to Khanna while Vietnamese Americans maintained their allegiance to Honda. One contributing factor could be negative ads run by the Honda campaign that were accused of evoking prejudice of Indian Americans 15 . A group of Silicon Valley Indian Americans responded to the ad with an open letter criticizing Honda for a lack of tolerance and 15 Herhold, Scott. “Mike Honda’s New Ad Diminishes Him.” The Mercury News. October 4, 2016. Article 2: The Influence of Candidate Race & Ethnicity Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 84 acceptance 16 . The sentiment may have had a spillover effect to Chinese Americans in the district, many of whom also work in Silicon Valley. Khanna’s campaign received significant support from tech moguls like Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg 17 . Honda, a Japanese American who was sent to an internment camp as a young boy during World War II, may have maintained the support of Vietnamese and Latino voters in the district with his advocacy for immigration reform, refugees and victims of human trafficking 18 . In addition, Latino and Vietnamese Americans could represent preferences based on socioeconomic status. While the 17th congressional district in California is a majority-minority district of Asian Americans, the findings presented here demonstrate that subgroups of Asian Americans based on country of origin exhibit political cohesion in divergent directions at the ballot box. While Chinese- and Indian-American voters formed a politically cohesive coalition of support for Khanna, Vietnamese Americans and Latino voters coalesced around Honda. The finding illustrates that although the district is a majority-minority district of Asian Americans, the Asian- American community is not a monolithic voting bloc. 16 “Open Letter to Congressman Mike Honda on ‘Racially Coded’ TV Ad.” India West. October 14, 2016. 17 Ferenstein, Gregory. “Congressional Candidate Ro Khanna Supports Some of Silicon Valley’s Most Ambitious Policy Ideas.” Forbes. September 22, 2016. 18 Honda, Mike. “In Support of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” Reform Immigration for America. 85 Table 1: Support for Asian American Assembly Candidates in Open Seat & Partisan Elections by Race or Ethnicity, 2012-16 Year District Competitive Margin Candidates Asian American Latino Other Chinese Vietnamese Indian 2012 18 1.0 Rob Bonta Abel Guillen 63.72 (4.10) 36.38 (4.15) 46.99 (4.14) 52.93 (4.14) 49.09 (1.01) 50.89 (1.02) 2012 19 16.8 Phil Ting Michael Breyer 78.76 (1.95) 21.27 (1.98) 56.77 (2.41) 43.25 (2.45) 52.44 (0.63) 47.55 (0.63) 81.68 (4.08) 18.09 (3.1) 2012 20 .6 Bill Quirk Jennifer Ong 37.35 (4.37) 62.49 (4.35) 55.76 (4.09) 44.23 (4.12) 50.62 (1.41) 49.41 (1.43) 2014 9 11 Jim Cooper Darrell Fong 40.86 (8.75) 59.02 (8.69) 80.36 (8.48) 19.72 (8.51) 53.84 (2.01) 46.13 (2.00) 2014 17 2.2 David Chiu David Campos 90.46 (2.81) 9.51 (2.77) 1.37 (1.31) 98.64 (1.31) 49.26 (0.7) 50.74 (0.69) 93.46 (2.59) 6.73 (2.69) 2016 14 23.0 Tim Grayson Mae Cendaña Torlakson 44.64 (15.86) 55.59 (15.64) 55.82 (5.07) 44.07 (5.05) 64.59 (1.51) 35.42 (1.51) 2016 27 6.4 Ash Kalra Madison Nguyen 48.55 (1.75) 51.48 (1.76) 55.53 (1.43) 44.44 (1.45) 53.11 (0.89) 46.89 (0.90) 41.72 (1.03) 57.71 (1.37) Table 2: Support for Asian American Candidates by Race or Ethnicity in Congressional District 17, 2012-16 Year District Competitive Margin Candidates Asian American Latino Other Chinese Vietnamese Indian 2012 17 47 Honda* (D) Li (R) 68.83 (2.66) 31.13 (2.62) 98.16 (1.62) 1.82 (1.62) 67.82 (1.44) 32.19 (1.43) 60.26 (6.15) 39.80 (6.2) 67.75 (6.04) 32.31 (6.1) 81.79 (9.98) 18.27 (10.04) 2014 17 3.6 Honda* Khanna 50.16 (2.01) 49.82 (1.99) 98.56 (1.32) 1.44 (1.33) 42.96 (1.11) 57.04 (1.12) 2016 17 22 Honda* Khanna 38.63 (1.9) 61.35 (1.87) 67.25 (2.93) 32.75 (2.90) 33.64 (1.29) 66.22 (1.27) 18.84 (4.13) 81.20 (4.17) 70.41 (5.14) 29.63 (5.19) 10.19 (5.45) 89.82 (5.5) * Indicates candidate was an incumbent; Assembly candidates in the top position of the cell won the election. Notes: (1) Standard errors in parentheses. (2) Data publicly available from UC Berkeley School of Law’s Statewide Database (3) Method: Asian American, Latino and Other categories were estimated using Rosen et al’s Ecological Inference Rows by Columns Method using eiCompare R package. National origin categories are calculated using King’s 2x2 solution to ecological inference (5) All co-partisan general elections with at least one Asian American on the ballot occurring in California’s assembly have been between Democrats. All candidates listed are members of the Democratic Party with the exception of candidate for congressional district 17 in 2012, Evelyn Li. (6) Competitive margin calculated as the percent of the vote received by the winning candidate minus the percent of the vote of the losing candidate. 86 DISCUSSION The kinds of elections analyzed in this paper represent rare occurrences: Only in California will you find two Asian Americans of different national origins but the same party competing in a general election. Yet, observing the places of convergence and divergence within the Asian American community, heterogeneous, complex and fast-growing community, can lead to wider analysis and applications. For example, can the data presented from California be an insight into emerging communities of Asian Americans nationwide? Does the data presented here represent evidence of racially polarized voting or vote dilution of the Asian American community that may have implications for those interested in Section 2 claims of the Voting Rights Act? Finally, what other micro-analysis does this kind of aggregate study omit? In this section I explore these questions and consider the broader implications of the data that has been presented. Descriptive Representatives The question of what it means to represent and what it means to be represented is a hallmark of debate within democratic theory. In her classic meditation on representation, Pitkin (1967) describes descriptive representation as when a representative resembles or shares certain characteristics with the represented. The diversity and heterogeneity of Asian Americans represent a challenge to this idea. The data presented here observes the voting preferences of Asian American voters both as a pan-ethnic group and as national origin groups. While these findings give no definitive conclusion to why voters vote as a racialized or national origin group, they can be considered within existing theories of representation and political behavior. We can view the coalescing of pan-ethnic Asian Americans around an Asian American candidate as a Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 87 struggle for descriptive representation and power within the political system. That pan-ethnic Asian Americans rally behind a candidate may suggest that an Asian American of any national origin background could satisfy the community’s descriptive demands (see for example Mansbridge 1999, 2011; Dovi 2002). Alternatively, the observance of cohesion at the national origin level may moderate the predominance of pan-ethnic appeals. While pan-ethnic identities are growing among Asian Americans and provide appeal across sub-national groups, co-ethnicity at the level of national origin remains a prevalent bond. This raises questions about how well an Asian American of any descent may be a descriptive representative for a different subnational community. For example, is Indian American Ro Khanna a descriptive representative to the Chinese community who supported him? Is he a descriptive representative to the Vietnamese community who didn’t support him? As other literature has suggested, he might simply be a rational actor who, knowing he needs to garner support at the ballot box, works to provide substantive representation to the Chinese and Vietnamese communities within his district. Such a relationship has been considered of white legislators representing districts with large African American electorates (Grose 2011). If the latter, then is Ro Khanna’s relationship with the Chinese and Vietnamese American communities in his district any different than his relationship with the Latino community? Beyond California, legislators and congressional candidates in districts with growing Asian American electorates have begun to court Asian American voters in notable swing states and districts. In Georgia’s sixth congressional district, a highly educated and affluent suburb of Atlanta, Asian Americans became a key constituency during a 2017 special election to replace Rep. Tom Price, who left his seat to join the Trump administration. Previously considered a Republican stronghold district, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff made a strong bid for the seat Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 88 drawing national attention and enormous campaign contributions from outside of the state. Outreach to the burgeoning Asian American community of John’s Creek was central to both candidates’ strategies 19 . Both candidates hired Asian American outreach staff to conduct phone banks in Asian languages, participated in Asian American heritage events and ran Korean- language radio advertisements. Similar stories of candidates and elected official courting Asian American voters can be found in Hendersen, Nevada; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Fairfax County Virginia; Northern New Jersey and Houston, Texas. This could be a signal that although the candidates are not a part of the Asian American communities, they are prepared to be responsive to the substantive needs of the community. From the data presented here, we can observe Asian Americans voting as a cohesive bloc in many instances, potentially a sign that Asian American pan-ethnicity is on the rise. However, there are also observable points of divergence along national origin lines, a finding that should be of importance to candidates and legislators in districts with burgeoning Asian American communities. Cohesive Voting Bloc The rejection of minority candidates, particularly in districts with large numbers of co- ethnic voters, raises questions about whether votes cast by citizens with distinct political interests may be ‘diluted’ in such a way that their candidate of choice has little to no chance of success. Claims of vote dilution speak to the maxim of democratic inclusion of minorities, which is the heart of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Asian Americans represent an emergent case within the study of vote dilution – a community who has long been identified as facing barriers to voting (Wong 2005; Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004), but whose relatively small size and 19 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/georgia-special-election-shines-light-asian-american-voters- n771996 Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 89 heterogeneity did not previously warrant examinations of vote cohesion. The findings presented here could potentially be examined from a Voting Rights Act lens. For example, could Jennifer Ong’s loss to Bill Quirk in assembly district 20 in 2012 constitute an example of Asian American racially polarized voting? At the national origin level, is the power of Vietnamese voters in San Jose being diluted? One could potentially look at their support for Madison Nguyen in the assembly election and Honda in the congressional election to argue that the Vietnamese community is unable to elect their candidate of choice. The Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Thornburg v. Gingles understood voting to be polarized when “(1) the political preferences of majority-race and minority-race voters diverge substantially and (2) the racial majority votes with enough cohesion to usually defeat the minority’s candidates of choice,” (Elmendorf, Quinn, and Abrajano 2016, p. 589). Asian Americans have not often been considered in this context, but the findings of this study suggest that perhaps they should. That the candidate of choice for Asian American voters is unable to be elected could constitute vote dilution in a strict interpretation of Section 2 that may require remedy such as the creation of Asian American majority-minority districts. Indeed, a similar case was recently considered in the neighboring city of Santa Clara, where Asian American residents filed a lawsuit claiming the at-large city council elections dilute their vote under the California Voting Rights Act. An Asian American candidate has never won a council seat, despite Asian American voters making up 30% of the eligible voter base 20 . Yet, at its 1965 inception, the federal VRA had the clear purpose of increasing the voice and power of African American voters. The 1975 Congressional amendment to the VRA expanded Section 2 protections to linguistic minorities including Latinos, Native Americans and Asian Americans. But twenty-first 20 Emily Deruy. “Santa Clara’s voting system attacked in court as discriminatory.” Mercury News. (Location, CA) April 23, 2018. Available here. Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 90 century redistricting decisions are no longer simply a Black and White affair, particularly in urban areas with diverse populations. That Asian Americans constitute a racially polarized group could be an important assessment but must be considered in light of districts comprised of multiple minority groups or what scholars have called “coalition” districts (Barreto, Grose and Henderson 2011). Moreover, the increasing diversity and incorporation of Asian Americans into the political landscape raises important questions about how different minorities might compete for representation. While answering these questions is beyond the scope of the present study, the findings presented here are fodder for additional research and theorizing about the future of minority representation in the United States and the kinds of institutional structures that may help or hinder the ability of various minority communities to be represented. Limitations Finally, there are a number of glaring research questions and these results to which this study simply does not respond. First, within the sample of co-partisan, open seat elections with at least one Asian American on the ballot, no female candidate wins. Candidates Ong, Cedana Torlakson and Nguyen all come up short in their bid for state legislative office. Is this result simply the outcome of free and fair elections, or do gender biases exist that are preventing women from advancing to elected office? The research design and data presented here are unable to uncover the mechanisms of these election results. Does the top-two primary structure somehow disadvantage women? Overall, since the adoption of the top-two primary, the number of women in California’s state legislature has been observed to drop (Sadhwani & Junn 2018), but no causal explanation for this decline has been found. Alternatively, while a majority of Asian American voters are found to support female Asian American candidates, the estimates Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 91 suggest the support for the females is less strong than male Asian American candidates. Are Asian Americans biased against co-ethnic female candidates? There is no concrete way to discern such a negative relationship from the findings. Additionally, the data has no way of extrapolating either individual or cohort effects within Asian communities. While surname matching is a useful method of identifying individuals likely of Asian descent, it does not identify if that person is first, second or third generation – distinctions which are essential to understanding the political behavior and motivations of Asian Americans. Similarly, the data cannot be easily applied to socioeconomic data such as income or education, typical drivers of political behavior. For example, could the support for Honda in the 17 th congressional district from Vietnamese and Latino voters be more an economic consideration than a racialized one? Honda, afterall, has long been an advocate of issues of concern for working class America, while Khanna was the favored candidate of the technology industry of the Silicon Valley. Finally, the results offer no concrete assessment of any racial backlash or animous that Asian American candidates might be facing (Voss and Lublin 2001; Abrajano and Hajnal 2015). The research design is not a complete picture of all Asian American or minority candidates on the ballot in California. While it may be tempting to use one or two cases to make a claim about potential backlash against a candidate due to his or her race or gender, the narrow, focused emphasis on open seat, co-partisan elections with an Asian American on the ballot, simply does not allow for such extrapolation. CONCLUSION This article asked do voters use the race or ethnicity of a candidate in selecting whom to support? Drawing upon California’s top-two primary electoral system, which results in a number Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 92 of co-partisan general election competitions, I analyze the support for Asian American candidates by race and ethnicity of voters when the cue of partisanship is no longer reliable. Using ecological inference estimates, I find that Asian American voters rally behind Asian American candidates and that support levels are enhanced between national-origin co-ethnic candidates and voters, providing support for the claim that racial identity may be a driving mechanism for Asian American voters. I have argued that this racialized divergence between Asian American voters in their selection of candidates, may suggest that racial identities are salient and influential for voters. While significant research has examined widespread trends in political beliefs and behaviors through the use of survey data, this study presents a novel approach by analyzing Asian American behavior through the use of surname matched vote returns. While this study has scrutinized the ballot box behavior of Asian American voters, an often-understudied community, I expect that the bonds of co-ethnicity work far more broadly than this. Did Latino voters support Campos for his Latino roots? 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Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 98 APPENDICES Appendix A – List of all Co-Partisan Elections in California 2012-2016 Table 1: Democratic Assembly Co-Partisan General Elections Year District Candidate 1 Candidate 2 2012 2 Wesley Chesbro Tom Lynch 10 Michael Allen Marc Levine 18 Rob Bonta Abel Guillen 19 Phil Ting Michael Breyer 20 Bill Quirk Jennifer Ong 39 Raul Bocanegra Richard Alarcon 47 Joe Baca Jr. Cheryl Brown 50 Richard Bloom Betsy Butler 51 Jimmy Gomez Luis Lopez 59 Reggie Jones-Sawyer Rodney Robinson 62 Mervin Evans Steven Bradford 2014 7 Steve Cohn Kevin McCarty 9 Jim Cooper Darrell Fong 15 Elizabeth Echols Tony Thurmond 17 David Campos David Chiu 39 Raul Bocanegra Patty Lopez 47 Cheryl Brown Gil Navarro 53 Sandra Mendoza Miguel Santiago 64 Mike Gipson Prophet La’Omar Walker 2016 10 Marc Levine Veronica Roni Jacobi 14 Tim Grayson Mae Dendana Torlakson 24 Vicki Veenker Marc Berman 27 Madison Nguyen Ash Kalra 30 Karina Cervantez Alejo Anna Caballero 39 Raul Bocanegra Patty Lopez 43 Laura Friedman Ardy Kassakhian 46 Adrin Nazarian Angela Rupert 47 Cheryl Brown Eloise Reyes 52 Freddie Rodgriguez Paul Vincent Avila 53 Sandra Mendoza Miguel Santiago Table 2: Republican Assembly Co-Partisan General Elections Year District Candidate 1 Candidate 2 2012 1 Brian Dahle Rick Bosetti 5 Frank Begelow Rico Oller 6 Beth Gaines Andy Pugno 23 Bob Whalen Jim Patterson 67 Phil Paule Melissa Mendoza Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 99 72 Troy Edgar Travis Allen 76 Sherry Hodges Rocky Chavez 2014 26 Devon Mathis Rudy Mendoza 71 Brian Jones Tony Teora 74 Keith Curry Matthew Harper 76 Rocky Chavez Thomas Krouse 2016 12 Ken Vogel Heath Flora 23 Jim Patterson Gwen Morris 71 Randy Voepel Leo Hamel Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 100 Appendix B – Goodman regression plots of percentage of a vote for a candidate by percent of Asian candidates 1.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 18, 2012 General Election 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % Vote for Bonta 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values bonta_per Assembly District 18, 2012 General Election Asian American Vote for Bonta 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Guillen 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values guillen_per Assembly District 18, 2012 General Election Asian American Vote for Guillen Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 101 2.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 19, 2012 General Election .3 .4 .5 .6 .7 % of Vote for Ting 0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values ting_per Assembly District 19, 2012 General Election Asian American Vote for Ting .3 .4 .5 .6 .7 % of Vote for Breyer 0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values breyer_per Assembly District 19, 2012 General Election Asian American Vote for Breyer .3 .4 .5 .6 .7 % of Vote for Ting 0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 % of Chinese American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values ting_per Assembly District 19, 2012 General Election Chinese American Vote for Ting Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 102 3.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 20, 2012 General Election 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Ong 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values ong_per Assembly District 20, 2012 General Election Asian American Vote for Ong 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Quirk 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values quirk_per Assembly District 20, 2012 General Election Asian American Vote for Quirk Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 103 4.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 9, 2014 General Election 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Fong 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values fong_per Assembly District 9, 2014 General Election Asian American Vote for Fong 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Cooper 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values cooper_per Assembly District 9, 2014 General Election Asian American Vote for Cooper Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 104 5.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 17, 2014 General Election .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Chiu 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values chiu_per Assembly District 17, 2014 General Election Asian American Vote for Chiu .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Chiu 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Chinese American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values chiu_per Assembly District 17, 2014 General Election Chinese American Vote for Chiu 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Vote for Campos 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values campos_per Assembly District 17, 2014 General Election Asian American Vote for Campos Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 105 6.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 14, 2016 General Election 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Cendana Torlakson 0 .05 .1 .15 .2 .25 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values torlakson_per Assembly District 14, 2016 General Election Asian American Vote for Cendana Torlakson 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Grayson 0 .05 .1 .15 .2 .25 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values grayson_per Assembly District 14, 2016 General Election Asian American Vote for Grayson Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 106 7.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 27, 2016 General Election 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Vote for Kalra 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values kalra_per Assembly District 27, 2016 General Election Asian American Vote for Kalra .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Nguyen 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values nguyen_per Assembly District 27, 2016 General Election Asian American Vote for Nguyen Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 107 8.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with fitted regression line for Asian American voters in Congressional District 17, 2012-2016 General Election .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Nguyen 0 .2 .4 .6 % of Vietnamese American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values nguyen_per Assembly District 27, 2016 General Election Vietnamese American Vote for Nguyen 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Honda 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values honda_per Congressional District 17, 2012 General Election Asian American Vote for Honda Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 108 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Honda 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values honda_per Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election Asian American Vote for Honda 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Khanna 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Asian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values khanna_per Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election Asian American Vote for Khanna 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Khanna 0 .2 .4 .6 % of Indian American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values khanna_per Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election Indian American Vote for Khanna Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 109 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Khanna 0 .1 .2 .3 .4 % of Chinese American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values khanna_per Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election Chinese American Vote for Khanna 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Honda 0 .2 .4 .6 % of Vietnamese American Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values honda_per Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election Vietnamese American Vote for Honda Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 110 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Honda 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Latino Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values honda_per Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election Latino Vote for Honda Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 111 Appendix C – Tomography Plots showing a “general area of intersection” Note: Appendix C is currently in shortened form. I have included a sample of tomography plots, not all tomography plots. I do have all of them and will add them to final draft. 7.) Tomography plots for Assembly District 17, 2016 General Election Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 112 8.) Tomography plots for Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election Article 2 Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 113 114 ARTICLE III: Candidate Ethnicity and Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Written and published with Matthew Mendez, Assistant Professor of Political Science at California State University, Channel Islands. Published in October 2018 in the California Journal of Politics and Policy. ABSTRACT: The adoption of the top two primary system in California is resulting in a rising number of general elections in which candidates from the same party compete. Incidentally, California is also home to a large and diverse Latino community. When party identification is no longer a reliable cue, do Latino voters turn to the race or ethnicity of a candidate in selecting whom to support? We examine co-partisan Republican general elections in California’s state assembly from 2012-2016. Using surname-matched precinct-level voter data, we conduct ecological inference analysis to estimate support for candidates based on the ethnicity of voters. Taking the case of Latino voters, we find a strong level of support for Latino Republican candidates, suggesting that a candidate’s ethnicity may inform voters’ strategic decision making in partisan elections. Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 115 INTRODUCTION In the largely agricultural region of Inyo and Tulare counties lies the predominantly Republican twenty-sixth assembly district. In 2014, two Republicans – Devon Mathis and Rudy Mendoza – advanced to the district’s general election under California’s top two primary system, in which the two candidates who receive the greatest number of votes in the open primary advance to the general election. California’s bold transition to a top two primary system has inspired significant scholarly debate about the potential moderating effect on policymaking (Gerber and Morton 1998; McGhee et al. 2014; Grose 2014; Ahler, Citrin, and Lenz 2016), the strategies candidates use to distinguish themselves in co-partisan elections (Alvarez and Sinclair 2015; Sinclair 2015) and the calculus of voters when faced with candidates from the same party (Alvarez and Nagler 2002; Nagler 2015; Sinclair and Wray 2015). Largely overlooked by these studies, however, is an explicit consideration of the way that race and ethnicity may powerfully influence the behavior of both candidates and voters from diverse communities. In this study we present the argument that in the absence of an explicit partisan cue voters will use shared ethnicity as a second-best option in order to determine their vote choice. More specifically, when faced with two Republican candidates, like in the twenty-sixth assembly district, do Latino Democrats support co-ethnic candidates? We examine Latino candidates in state assembly general election races in California. California’s top two primary provides an ideal opportunity to study Latino voter behavior. Since the reform went into effect in 2012, forty-four assembly-level general elections have featured candidates from the same party, or co-partisan elections. These co-partisan competitions allow for an examination of voting behavior when partisanship of the candidate is no longer a reliable cue. To examine co-ethnicity, we turn to two districts where the top two primary resulted in two Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 116 Republicans on the ballot featuring at least one Latino candidate – the 2014 election of Devon Mathis in district 26 and the 2012 election of Rocky Chavez in district 76. An analysis of these elections provides insights on the extent to which Latino voters may use the race or ethnicity of a candidate to inform their vote choice. Scholars have long identified a relationship between Latino candidates and voters (Arvizu & Garcia 1996; Hero 1992; Barreto, Segura & Woods 2004; Fraga 2016) and this study contributes to the literature by examining vote choice under the institutional constraint of a co-partisan election combined with the significant ethnic diversity of the districts. This combination of factors allows for a novel assessment of voting behavior when the cue of partisanship is no longer present. Using ecological inference, the method mandated by courts in Voting Rights Act cases, we examine surname-matched vote returns in the districts and find that Latino voters - particularly Latino Democrats - converge around co-ethnic candidates. We draw upon both the institutional literature on primaries and the burgeoning Latino politics literature to argue that Latinos are sincere voters, who cast their vote for the candidate they prefer over all other alternatives (Alvarez & Nagler 2002; Nagler 2015). Like other voters, many Latinos are partisans, who seek to support candidates who advance an agenda aligned with their individual beliefs and convictions. However as a minority community, Latinos have generally been found to also have a desire for descriptive representatives (Baik, Lavariega- Monforti & McGlynn 2009; Schildkraut 2013; Wallace 2014; Casellas and Wallace 2015), or to see co-ethnics elected to office. When faced with a general election with the choice between two candidates from an opposing party, the majority of Latinos who turnout to vote, we argue, will support a co-ethnic candidate. Underlying this argument is a well-established assumption that racial and ethnic identification is associated with voting behavior, particularly in localized elections (Baretto 2010; Brown 2014; Hajnal & Trounstine 2014). Distinct from studies that have Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 117 examined whether co-ethnic candidates have a mobilizing effect on voter turnout (Gay 2001, Barreto, Segura & Woods 2004; Barreto 2007; Fraga 2016), our contribution asserts that having a candidate of the same ethnicity influences the vote choice of co-ethnic voters. Research by Casellas and Wallace (2015) is especially pertinent, as they find that Latino Democrats are more likely than Latino Republicans to believe that co-ethnic representation is desirable. The cases examined in this study – California’s 26 th and 76 th Assembly districts – allow the opportunity to test this finding as Latino Democrats were faced with the choice between a Latino Republican and an Anglo Republican. Using ecological inference, a statistical tool that estimates who Latino voters supported in these two assembly elections, we find that Latino Democratic voters overwhelmingly supported Latino Republican candidates when no Democratic candidate was available. INNOVATION IN CALIFORNIA AND LATINO VOTING BEHAVIOR In 2010, California voters approved Proposition 14, the Top Two Primaries Act, requiring all candidates to run in a single primary, open to all registered voters. The two candidates who emerge as the frontrunners advance to the general election. Numerous studies have examined whether primary institution type can lead to either legislator polarization or moderation. Early assessments found open primaries lead to the election of more moderate candidates (Gerber and Morton 1998). More recent evaluations, however, have yielded mixed results. In a nationwide assessment, McGhee et al (2014) do not find a meaningful or systematic moderating effect. Specific to California, Alvarez and Sinclair (2015) argue the top-two does produce more moderate winners in some highly competitive districts while Grose (2014) finds moderation to occur in assembly elections, but not in congressional elections. Additional studies in this arena Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 118 consider the consequences of primary type on representational quality (Ahler, Citrin, and Lenz 2016; T. Kousser, Phillips, and Shor 2016), the behavior of voters as strategic actors (Nagler 2015; Alvarez and Nagler 2002; Leighley and Nagler 2013), and the changes in voters’ information seeking behavior (B. Sinclair and Wray 2015). A prominent emphasis of this literature is the examination of crossover voting, which occurs when a voter opts to support a candidate of the other party. Traditionally, crossover voting referred to voters opting to participate in another party’s primary rather than their own due to different incentives related to the partisan competitiveness of the district (Alvarez and Nagler 2002; Sides, Cohen, and Citrin 2002; Bullock and Clinton 2011). Yet, As Nagler (2015) notes, this literature does not necessarily apply to California’s top two, which forces all candidates regardless of a party to run on one ballot with the top vote-getters advancing to the general election. In his examination of California voters in 2012, Nagler (2015), instead, hypothesizes that voters from disadvantaged parties will opt to cast ballots for the dominant party’s candidate(s) in the all-candidate primary to strategically impact who advances to the general election competition. His theory emerges from Alvarez and Nagler’s (2002) typology of strategic voters in an open primary. Drawing upon survey data, Nagler concludes, much like Sides et al. (2002), that strategic voting is generally not occurring and that most voters are sincere voters who cast their ballots for the candidate they genuinely find most appealing. 21 Highton, Huckfelt, and Hale’s (2016) review of the consequences of California’s top two primary help build on Nagler’s study of primary voting behavior by focusing on general election competitions. Relying on district level surveys from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, they find that a voter’s partisan and ideological preferences significantly structure their 21 However, Nagler (2015) does find that 20% of partisan voters do crossover. For example, he finds that ideology and college education influence Republican crossover voters while conservative ideology is important for Democrats. Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 119 ballot choices in co-partisan general elections, albeit at a lower rate than inter-party general elections. Highton et al. question why ideological and partisan polarization occurs among voters even though members of the disadvantaged party do not have a co-partisan in the race. One possible explanation for this puzzle that we explore here, is that co-ethnic bonds between voters and candidates may contribute to levels of competition in co-partisan elections and on the vote choice of minority voters. Largely missing from the aforementioned studies is an explicit theory of how racial and ethnic dynamics, either related to a desire to see a co-ethnic elected to office (Wolfinger 1965; Simien 2015) or ethnic-oriented targeted campaign strategies (Leighley 2001; Fraga 2016), might influence the behavior of minority voters under the constraint of the top two primary. Wray and Sinclair (2015) find that in the absence of an explicit partisan cue, voters engaged in information-seeking behavior following the primary to help them make a decision in the general election. We contend that ethnic minority voters, such as Latino Democrats, turn to the heuristic of shared ethnicity, at least partly, to fill in as a cue of who might better represent them and who might be more ideologically aligned with them. While those scholars find that voters turn to Google searches in order to determine how to vote, other research finds that voters utilize candidate ascriptive characteristics, like gender, race and age, in order to help determine their vote choice in the absence of an explicit partisan cue (Jackman and Vavreck 2010; Norrander 1986; Stone, Rappaport, and Abramowitz 1992). Ascriptive characteristics have generally been measured as a function of racial attitudes (Jackman and Vavreck 2010) or ethnic attachment (DeFrancesca Soto 2006) and group consciousness (McClain 2009). 22 We contend that ethnic minority voters, such as Latino Democrats, turn to the 22 Group consciousness refers to an individual’s acknowledgement of a minority group’s disadvantaged and out-group status in society (Gurin, Miller, and Gurin 1980; McClain et al 2009). Ethnic attachment refers to an individual’s identification with a larger minority group that via group traits, such as language ability (DeFrancesco Soto 2006). Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 120 obvious cue of shared ethnicity, at least partly, to fill in as a cue of who might better represent them. Prior research finds that shared ethnicity is related to Latino vote choice (Hill, Moreno, and Cue 2001; Baretto 2007). Latino ethnicity can have a more direct effect on vote choice for Latinos when social group considerations are cued and the individuals possess a strong ethnic or racial consciousness (Stokes-Brown 2006; Sanchez & Masuoka 2010; Manzano and Sanchez 2010; Collingwood et al 2014). Yet, the top two primary design gives us a chance to explore the possibility that ethnicity instead serves as a cue for who might better represent them in the legislature. The prior studies mentioned did not take into account what happens when the partisan cue is removed entirely and Latino partisan voters are left to determine who among the candidates of the opposing party are more ideologically aligned with them. More specifically, we theorize that observable Latino voting behavior constitutes sincere voting because the shared ethnicity of the candidate is the second-best, low-cost cue for voters after the party label. Shared ethnicity serves as a heuristic for voters to determine who might be more responsive to them. The extant literature finds that minority communities tend to receive cues from co-ethnic candidates – be it their appearance, campaign cues, or symbolic gestures – that they will be more responsive to their needs (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Tate 1991). Shared ethnicity has been found to serve such a function for Latino voters as well (Pantoja and Segura 2003; McConnaughy, White, Leal, and Casellas 2010), with the effects of descriptive representation being strongest among the politically informed and those who believe that a co- ethnic representative will address the political interests of the group. Therefore, Latino voters would take the ethnicity of a Latino Republican candidate as a cue that they are closer to them ideologically than a non-Latino Republican candidate. Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 121 Moreover, in this study we contend that the existing institutional design literature examining the top two primary should explicitly theorize the role of race and ethnicity in an examination of electoral outcomes. The primary design allows for opportunities to study voter behavior when partisanship is no longer a cue. While much research has suggested that candidates facing co-partisan elections may moderate their positions to appeal to a wider array of a district’s electorate, an alternative view that we present here, is that voters may rely upon co- ethnicity as a basis for choosing whom to support at the ballot box. We posit that the two Assembly race case studies examined here demonstrate that ethnic cues can influence the vote choice of Latino Democrats. CALIFORNIA’S LATINO REPUBLICANS AND CO-PARTISAN RACES To examine Latino voter behavior through the lens of ethnicity and not partisanship or incumbency, this paper examines California State Assembly races that feature an open-seat, co- partisan Republican election with at least one Latino Republican on the general election ballot. We limit our analysis to open seat elections to observe voter behavior without the limitation of incumbency advantage. We rely on co-partisan Republican elections in order to observe the behavior of Latino Democratic voters and determine whether a co-ethnic relationship is present. Two elections meet this criteria: the 76 th district in 2012 and the 26 th district in 2014. The 76 th assembly district is a Republican stronghold with registered Republicans accounting for nearly 40 percent of district voters and with no Democratic candidates vying for the open seat on the primary ballot in 2012. Democrats comprise 30 percent of the district’s registered voters, while independents make up an additional 25 percent. Rocky Chavez was seen as a moderate candidate with great appeal due to his military background, extensive statewide Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 122 experience as the top official in the Department of Veterans Affairs for Gov. Schwarzenegger, and Latino heritage (Livingston 2018). The San Diego area district, which includes Camp Pendleton, Carlsbad, Encinitas, and Oceanside, is a majority white district (57.89 percent non- Hispanic White) with a sizable Latino population (29.33 percent). Chavez defeated the preferred candidate of the local Republican Party, legislative aide Sherry Hodges, in the general election, 58.2 percent to 41.8 percent according to certified results from the California Secretary of State. In the same election, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney received 49 percent of the district vote, only narrowly defeating Democrat Barack Obama, who received 48.8 percent of votes. In 2012, Latinos accounted for 11.9 percent of the total vote, according to surname matching data available from the Statewide Database, with 40 percent of Latino voters in the district registered as Democrats and an even share (27 percent) of Latinos registered as Republican and Independent. There is some evidence that Chavez’s campaign sought to make specific appeals to Latino voters (Walker 2012). Thus our study seeks to identify the extent to which Latino voters may have rallied behind their co-ethnic candidate Rocky Chavez. The 26 th Assembly District is an inland, primarily agricultural district that encompasses nearly all of Tulare and Inyo Counties, and a small section of Kern County. In 2014, then Assembly Republican Minority Leader Connie Conway was termed out and endorsed Mayor Rudy Mendoza of Woodlake to succeed her. Mendoza had worked as an aide for Republican Congress Member Devin Nunes and garnered the support of local Republican Party leaders and elected officials. The 26 th District is solidly Republican territory as registered Republicans outpaced registered Democrats by 14 percentage points, and Republican candidates took nearly 70 percent of votes in the crowded June 2014 primary which featured four Republican and three Democratic candidates. Mendoza was seen as the frontrunner and finished first in the all Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 123 candidate primary with 40.3 percent of the vote against second-place finisher, Devon Mathis, a White Republican, with 20.5 percent of the vote according to certified results from the Secretary of State’s Office. Table 1: General Election Results – California Assembly District 76 (2012) and 26 (2014) Assembly District 76 – San Diego County (2012) Sherry Hodges (Rep) 63,526 41.8% Rocky Chavez (Rep) 88,295 58.2% Assembly District 26 – Inyo, Kern, Tulare Counties (2014) Devon Matthis (Rep) 34,683 53.6% Rudy Mendoza (Rep) 29,991 46.4% Vote tallies certified by the California Secretary of State. In a surprising development, Mathis ended up defeating Mendoza in the general election, 53.6 to 46.4 percent. In the non-presidential election year, turnout was relatively low. While more than 70 percent of Latinos turned out in 2012 to support Chavez in district 76, only 31 percent of registered Latinos cast a ballot in 2014 in the 26th assembly district, according to surname matching data. Mendoza’s poor showing caught him and the Republican Party by surprise. Mendoza had raised substantially more money and had been the clear front-runner, but Mathis’ military background and work on behalf of veteran’s issues may have propelled him among district voters. Both cases demonstrate two unique candidates in two different kinds of districts. Chavez was considered a political moderate in a less conservative district where both candidates sought to reach out to Democrats and Independents (Jenkins 2012). Mendoza ran in a far more conservative district where his Latino heritage did not seem to be part of his campaign (Griswold 2014). We contend that in the absence of a co-partisan in the general election, Latino Democrats had an ethnic cue that might have influenced their vote choice. Thus, we hypothesize: Of the registered Latino Democrats who voted in the general election, a majority will support a co- Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 124 ethnic candidate in a co-partisan election regardless of the candidate being from an opposing party. RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY The units of analysis in this study are aggregated precincts within each of the two assembly districts. Data was procured from the publicly available Statewide Database (SWDB), held at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Identified as California’s official redistricting database, this dataset pulls vote returns from all California counties, standardizes variables across counties and conducts surname-matching analysis of voter data. While surname matching is not a perfect science, it allows researchers to identify voters based on ethnic and typical surname. The SWDB uses two surname dictionaries compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau to identify Latino voters (Lauderdale and Kestenbaum 2000; McKue 2011). To conduct our analysis, two unique data files for each election were merged. These include (1) the Statement of Vote, which reports final vote tallies for each candidate from all counties and certified by the Secretary of State and (2) the Voters file which reports the final vote with surname matching. Method of Analysis We estimate support for a candidate by race and ethnicity of voters using ecological inference, a statistical method of inferring individual behavior from aggregate data. Because the United States operates under a secret ballot system, we have no way of knowing for certain how individuals vote. Surveys and exit polls sufficiently capture results in national or statewide elections, but rarely capture enough localized data to be informative in state and local elections, and often are not adequately representative of minority communities (Arvizu and Garcia 1996; Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 125 Tate 1991; Lien 2004). In the 1950’s Goodman (1953; 1959) identified a basic bivariate regression he termed “ecological regression” for the use of “ecological data,” or variables that describe groups such as race. Goodman’s bivariate ecological regression uses the method of bounds to estimate voting by ethnic group by asking how precincts that were 100 percent non- Asian or 100 percent Asian would have voted, on average (Kousser 2001). The analysis is an ordinary least squares model that takes the simple, linear form Y=a + bX + e, where Y, the dependent variable, is the percentage of the total vote that a particular candidate receives; and X, the independent variable, is the percentage of Latino voters. The variable a, or the point at which the regression line intercepts the left vertical axis, estimates the percentage of the non-Latinos who voted for a candidate. The variable b is the slope of the regression line and e represents a margin of error. The sum of a + b is used as the estimate of the percentage of Latinos who voted for a particular candidate. Using this method, we plot the percentage of the vote for each candidate against the percentage of the voters in the precinct who had Latinos surnames. Across the elections, the graphs indicate that as the percentage of Latino voters increased, the percentage of the vote for the Latinos candidate also increased. The critiques of ecological regression are well documented in the literature. Robinson (1950) argued that relying on aggregate data to infer individual behavior may be misleading, one of the most obvious deficiencies being some vote estimates that fall beyond 100% of the vote (Ferree 2004; Herron and Shotts 2003). Nonetheless, ecological regression has been the hallmark method of analysis of Voting Rights cases in the courts throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s to identify levels of racially polarized voting and vote dilution among minority communities (Grofman 1991, 1992). Since that time, significant improvements have been made to both the statistical logic of the method and advancements in computing technology. In response to criticism of the method’s Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 126 unreliability, Gary King (1997) advanced an ecological inference (EI) solution building off an assumption of data being distributed not on a normal curve, but instead a ‘truncated normal distribution’ (King 1997; Cho 1998; J. M. Kousser 2001). Whereas the parameters of a normal distribution can range from plus infinity to minus infinity – thereby creating estimates that fall beyond 100% of a vote – King’s truncated distribution limits vote estimations to the 0-100 range. In addition, King’s procedure takes into account demographic bounds not at the district level, but at the precinct level, improving the precision of estimation at each and every precinct. King et al (1999) and Rosen et al (2001) extended the ecological inference solution using a hierarchical Bayesian “rows by columns” (R x C) approach that could better accommodate multiple candidates, races and ethnicities. Today, ecological inference no longer requires supercomputing, making it a more accessible approach for researchers. We employ the eiCompare R packaged advanced by Collingwood, Oskooii, Garcia-Rios, and Barreto (2016), which computes and compares estimates using all three approaches. Table 2: Total Latino and Asian American Voters Identified by Surnaming Matching Republican Democrat Independent Other Total Votes Percent of Total Electorate District 76: Chavez- Hodges (2012) Latino 5657 (25.9%) 10179 (46.6%) 5065 (23.2%) 925 (4%) 21826 11.9 Asian 2133 (31.4%) 2278 (33.5%) 2017 (29.7%) 309 (4%) 6794 3.7 District 26: Mathis- Mendoza (2014) Latino 4634 (25.5%) 10297 (56.7%) 2659 (14.6%) 562 (3%) 18152 21.5 Asian 806 (43.2%) 683 (36.6%) 314 (16.8%) 62 (3%) 1865 2 Source: University of California Berkeley School of Law’s Statewide Database Table 2 reports the number of Latino and Asian American surname matched voters who cast a ballot in the elections of interest. In this study we assess all Latino voters and a disaggregated group of Latino Democrats. We use a threshold of ten thousand voters to conduct Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 127 the analysis. As the majority of Latinos in both districts are registered as Democrats, we focus our analysis on the behavior of this subset of Latinos, as the analysis of Latino Republicans alone is insufficient for statistical estimation. We also estimate a broad “other” category which includes all other voters in the district. Surname matching within the Statewide Database provides an estimate of six subgroups of Asian Americans: Chinese, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Filipino. While California has a large and diverse population of Asian American communities, the total number of Asian American voters in the two selected districts is relatively small and thus included within the category of “other” voters. RESULTS The results of the ecological inference estimations for support for candidates are presented in Table 3. They show that under the constraint of a partisan election in which candidates from the same party compete, thereby eliminating a differentiated partisan cue, a majority of Latino, especially Latino Democrats, rally behind a Latino Republican candidate in both of the observe elections, providing support for the hypothesis. In 2012, in district 76, 90.9 percent of all Latino voters supported Latino candidate Rocky Chavez. Among Latino Democrats, nearly 100 percent of those who cast a ballot are estimated to have supported Chavez. Among all other voters, Chavez also received strong support (53.6 percent) over Hodges. In 2014, in district 26, Rudy Mendoza received an estimated 72.3 percent of support from all Latino voters. While this level represents a significant majority of Latino support, it is relatively less than what Chavez was able to garner. Reports from The Fresno Bee, a local newspaper covering the district suggest a tense relationship between Mendoza and district Latinos, as well as a possible backlash from whites. The chair of the Tulare Democratic Party, Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 128 Ruben Macareno, remarked that Latinos did not show up for Mendoza en masse because Mendoza made it clear he was “not a ‘Latino candidate’”. In addition, California political expert Allen Hoffenblum of California’s Political Targetbook opined that Mendoza’s Spanish surname might have hurt him with non-Hispanic district voters (Griswold 2014). Despite this, we find a higher percentage of Latino Democrats (89.2 percent) lent their support to Mendoza, providing credence to Casellas and Wallace’s finding that Latino Democrats have a stronger preference for co-ethnic descriptive representatives. Table 3: Support for Latino Republican Assembly Candidates in Open Seat & Partisan Elections by Race or Ethnicity Year District Candidates Latino Other Latino Democrats 2012 76 Rocky Chavez Sherry Hodges 90.9 (6.83) 9.02 (6.86) 53.6 (1.01) 46.4 (1.01) 99.8 (0.14) 0.11 (0.11) 2014 26 Devin Mathis Rudy Mendoza 27.7 (2.79) 72.3 (2.82) 60.8 (1.11) 39.2 (1.12) 10.6 (9.28) 89.2 (9.51) Notes: (1) Standard errors in parentheses; (2) Data publicly available from UC Berkeley School of Law’s Statewide Database; (3) Method: Estimations were generated using King’s solution to Ecological Inference using eiCompare R package; (4) Candidates in the top position of the cell won the election. Figures 1 and 2 plot the percent of the precinct vote for the candidates by the percent of Latino Democratic voters in each precinct, with a fitted regression line. The figures present a positive relationship between the demographics of a precinct and the support for the Latino candidates. The graphs provide a visual interpretation that as the number of Latino Democratic voters increases in a precinct, support for the Latino candidate also increased. Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 129 Figure 1: Scatterplot of precinct votes for Rudy Mendoza by Percent of Latino Democrats in precinct and fitted regression line 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Mendoza 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 % of Latino Democrat Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values mendoza_per Assembly District 26, 2014 General Election Latino Democrat's Vote for Mendoza Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 130 Figure 2: Scatterplot of precinct votes for Rocky Chavez by Percent of Latino Democratic voters in precinct & fitted regression line CONCLUSION The analysis provides evidence that Latino Democrats rallied their support for co-ethnics in co-partisan races that featured two Republicans and supports our claim that in the absence of an explicit partisan cue, voters will use shared ethnicity as a second-best option in order to determine their vote choice. The findings demonstrate that race and ethnicity need to be considered when studying vote choice under the constraint of California’s top two primary system, given the state’s unique position as a majority-minority state and that partisan attachments and relationships have consistently been found to operate differently for racial and ethnic minorities. While our analysis does not allow for an analysis of individual voter behavior or information-seeking, it does present evidence that suggests ethnicity may be a salient factor in these elections by estimating how Latino Democrats voted through the ecological inference 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 % of Vote for Chavez 0 .1 .2 .3 % of Latino Democratic Voters in Precinct 95% CI Fitted values chavez_per Assembly District 76, 2012 General Election Latino Democratic Vote for Chavez Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 131 method. The method helps fill in the gaps for small electoral districts that most national surveys cannot accurately sample due to resource constraints. The aggregate level analysis finds that Latino Democratic voters overwhelmingly favored co-ethnic Latino Republicans over the White Republicans. Unfortunately, the observation of vote returns and estimation of voting behavior cannot paint a complete picture of an election. It is also important to consider the relationship between the larger electoral context and elite strategy. It is critical to note, for example, that Rocky Chavez ran in a presidential year when Democratic and Latino turnout would be high, as compared to Rudy Mendoza who ran in a midterm election where minority groups typically have lower turnout (Gilliam 1985). It is also important to note that both candidates had different relationships with local Republican party leaders that may have influenced their campaign strategy (Ocampo 2018). Mendoza was the anointed candidate in his race, while Chavez was running against the preferred candidate of local leaders. Did this dynamic incentivize Chavez to make Latino voters, including Latino Democrats, an integral part of his electoral coalition, while leading Mendoza to ignore them? Qualitative studies that examine local contextual factors and actors could provide additional insights to these kinds of district cases. While the majority of Latinos in California are registered Democrats, a co-ethnic Republican candidate on the ballot may influence them to vote as a bloc for a co-ethnic. Previous studies (Nagler 2015, Sides et al. 2002) indicate that strategic voting only occurs for a small share of the electorate. But Latino Democrats, who have been found to prefer descriptive representatives (Casellas and Wallace 2015), even from an opposing party (Baik et al 2009), are behaving sincerely by voting for a co-ethnic Republican. Thus, our research suggests that ethnicity might be one of the reasons that Highton et al. (2016) observe party polarization in their Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 132 data. While ascertaining the exact reasoning behind an individual’s vote in a 2012 or 2014 assembly election would prove challenging, localized surveys and interviews of Latino Democrats in these instances would be worthy of future study given the findings reported here. In addition, further research should investigate the extent to which cross-partisan, ethnic coalitions are a pathway to office for Latino Republicans and how demographics might influence the campaign strategies of minority Republicans. Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 133 LIST OF WORKS CITED Ahler, Douglas J., Jack Citrin, and Gabriel S. 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Article 3: Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections Dissertation of Sara Sadhwani University of Southern California 139 Appendix A: List of all Co-Partisan Elections in California 2012-2016 Table A1: Republican Assembly Co-Partisan General Elections Year District Candidate 1 Candidate 2 2012 1 Brian Dahle Rick Bosetti 5 Frank Bigelow Rico Oller 6 Beth Gaines Andy Pugno 23 Bob Whalen Jim Patterson 67 Phil Paule Melissa Mendoza 72 Troy Edgar Travis Allen 76 Sherry Hodges Rocky Chavez 2014 26 Devon Mathis Rudy Mendoza 71 Brian Jones Tony Teora 74 Keith Curry Matthew Harper 76 Rocky Chavez Thomas Krouse 2016 12 Ken Vogel Heath Flora 23 Jim Patterson Gwen Morris 71 Randy Voepel Leo Hamel

Abstract (if available)

Abstract While numerous studies have examined the effect of a co-ethnic on the ballot for African Americans and Latinos, Asian Americans remain understudied in this regard. With the growth of Asian American voters nationwide, empirical questions prevail: Does the presence of an Asian American candidate on the ballot spur Asian American turnout? Can we expect country of origin subgroups of Asian Americans such as Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese voters to support co-ethnic candidates or does such cohesion not exist? Using surname-matched vote returns from the California state assembly across three election years, I examine both pan-ethnic and national origin Asian American turnout in the presence of a co-ethnic candidate. I find that Asian American candidates do have a measurable increase on both pan-ethnic and national origin turnout. The findings suggest Asian American political behavior is markedly distinct from other minority voters.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Sadhwani, Sara D. (author)

Core Title Descriptive representation in a multi-racial America

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Political Science and International Relations

Publication Date 08/15/2019

Defense Date 03/08/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Asian American,identity,Latino,mobilization,OAI-PMH Harvest,representation,vote choice,voting behavior

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Junn, Jane (committee chair), Agius Vallejo, Jody (committee member), Grose, Christian (committee member), Ramirez, Ricardo (committee member)

Creator Email sarasadhwaniphd@gmail.com,ssadhwani@callutheran.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-215703

Unique identifier UC11663259

Identifier etd-SadhwaniSa-7788.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-215703 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SadhwaniSa-7788.pdf

Dmrecord 215703

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Sadhwani, Sara D.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA