Kamala Harris has spoken of her racial backgrounds, but a shared identity may not be enough to attract supporters

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Kamala Harris has spoken of her ******* backgrounds, but a shared identity may not be enough to attract supporters

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

In one of the most

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of the current presidential campaign, Donald Trump in July 2024 contended that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris recently stopped identifying as Indian and “happened

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

******.”

With these

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, Trump implied that Harris emphasized one part of her background to appeal to voters and then changed that to appeal to a different group of voters.

Lost within this controversy has been the underlying assumption in Trump’s comments, that people tend to vote for someone with a shared identity. But is that true? Are ****** Americans, for example, especially likely to vote for Harris because of their shared identity?

****** Americans are a quickly growing political constituency that made a difference in 2020 in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

such as Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, helping elect President Joe Biden. They are positioned

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

again this November.

Taken as a whole,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Democratic in 2024, with 62%

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, compared with 38% who support Trump. But for Harris, ****** Americans are not as strong a voting bloc as ****** Americans, who

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, according to the Pew Research Center. Harris cannot take ****** Americans’ votes for granted.

What guides identity politics and voting

Despite the assumption in Trump’s comments that voters gravitate toward a political candidate who shares parts

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, such as race or gender, that is

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Voters are more likely to vote for someone with a shared identity when they see a “linked fate.” with the candidate. So, people who have the same ethnicity or race may vote in a similar fashion because they expect to experience the effects of policy changes in the same way. Latinos could be more likely to vote for a Latino candidate because the candidate would prioritize issues that matter to them, such as immigration reform.

Politicians, for their part, can try to encourage people with whom they share an identity to believe in a linked fate to win their vote. In order to do this, candidates can play up issues that affect their identity group and then make the case that they are best equipped and more motivated to address those problems.

For instance,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

rights

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and trust Harris to understand it.

In order to earn voters’ support, candidates must also come across as likely to act in their supporters’ shared interests. This helps explain why people who care about so-called

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, such as education or health care, are more likely to vote for a Democratic woman than a *********** woman. People generally think that

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

women better than Republicans do—and they would not assume that a *********** female politician would champion women’s issues just because of her gender.

With this in mind, a candidate wanting to secure the vote of a group must first know what issues matter to them and then demonstrate that they understand the group well enough to earn their vote.

****** Americans, like most Americans,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, inflation, health care, ******, Social Security, the price of housing and immigration as their top issues in this election.

In order to effectively appeal to ****** ********* voters, Harris could demonstrate first that she identifies as ****** in order to invoke their shared identity. She could also show that she both understands the issues that ****** Americans care about and that she can be trusted to act in ways they favor on those issues.

To an extent, Harris has already worked to publicly identify with her South ****** heritage.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to her mother’s immigrant background and has talked about her grandfather who lived in Chennai, in southern India. She has made references to her ******* culture, such as when she mentioned

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and cooked the traditional South Indian dish dosa

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

with fellow Indian ********* Mindy Kaling.

Connecting to ****** Americans

Once solidifying that they share an identity with a group of voters, political candidates must demonstrate that they understand how the group experiences the issues that matter to them. The concerns of ****** Americans arise out of specific experiences they have—such as immigration.

****** Americans, for example, often complain about the long wait to sponsor family members abroad for visas to the U.S. At the same time, ****** Americans represent 15% of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

****** Americans are also concerned about the growing

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and smugglers whom immigrants pay to help them illegally cross the border.

Harris often speaks about immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, but not in personal terms—or about how this issue specifically relates to Asians.

While all U.S.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, in particular, feel the pinch. They must pay higher prices for goods but have limited capital with which to do so. They also must navigate higher interest rates.

While ****** Americans make up about

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, they

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and are the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of small-business owners.

Harris talks about the economy

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, as well as the need to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, but not about how these issues specifically affect ****** Americans. Her only ad targeting ****** Americans has focused on

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

against them.

And ****** Americans, like most voters,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Social Security and other federal programs that aim to ensure stability for the elderly. Harris could speak of how Social Security is the sole

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

for over a quarter of ****** Americans—and for a third of ******** Americans—compared with 18% of white Americans.

Harris seems poised to capture the majority of the ****** ********* vote, which leans Democratic. But to what extent they vote for her—and with how much enthusiasm—will depend on Harris’ ability to connect with them as ****** Americans and the issues they care about.

Provided by
The Conversation

This article is republished from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

under a Creative Commons license. Read the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Citation:
Kamala Harris has spoken of her ******* backgrounds, but a shared identity may not be enough to attract supporters (2024, October 8)
retrieved 8 October 2024
from

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Kamala #Harris #spoken #******* #backgrounds #shared #identity #attract #supporters

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/