The Relevance of Religion for Political Office: Voter Bias Toward Candidates from Different Religious Backgrounds
Over the last several decades, Gallup data shows an increased willingness among members of the public to support presidential candidates from a wide range of religious backgrounds, though a nontrivial proportion of the public is still unwilling to vote for an Atheist, Mormon, or Muslim. What underli...
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Published in | Political behavior Vol. 44; no. 2; pp. 981 - 1001 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York
Springer US
01.06.2022
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Over the last several decades, Gallup data shows an increased willingness among members of the public to support presidential candidates from a wide range of religious backgrounds, though a nontrivial proportion of the public is still unwilling to vote for an Atheist, Mormon, or Muslim. What underlies this opposition? We argue that voters evaluate candidates from religious out-groups more negatively on a wide range of dimensions considered desirable for political office, and that this bias should be more pronounced among the highly religious. We show support for these arguments using a survey experiment fielded with YouGov. Atheists and Muslim candidates were perceived more negatively on a large set of traits considered desirable for political office compared to candidates from religious in-groups, and Mormon candidates fall somewhere in between. The Atheist and Muslim candidates were also perceived as less competent on a diverse set of issues. |
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ISSN: | 0190-9320 1573-6687 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s11109-022-09782-6 |