Description
- Abstract:
- This thesis asks how racial appeals in political discourse affect working-class attitudes toward Medicaid. Although prior literature has displayed that racial resentment influences public opinion on welfare programs like Medicaid, there has been less done to examine this relationship across different class statuses and political contexts. Utilizing existing theories on public opinion, racial priming, and the salience of racial appeals, this study argues that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign demonstrates heightened racial appeals in political discourse, which changes an individual’s level of racial resentment. To test this argument, I employ data from the 2014 and 2016 Comparative Election Study (CES). I construct a racial resentment measurement index and utilize a two-way fixed effects regression model to estimate the relationship between racial resentment and support for Medicaid over time and class by applying interaction terms. The results from this paper find that there is no association between racial resentment and changes in Medicaid support after Trump’s 2016 campaign among working-class respondents. Further, the findings indicate that education levels are a better predictor of class status than income, with results showing that the increased salience of racial appeals in 2016 made racial resentment matter more for those more highly educated when it came to their opinions on Medicaid. These results contribute to the existing literature on the relationship between race, welfare, and class by demonstrating how racial priming and attitudes can be dependent on class status. Additionally, it showcases the role elites play in influencing public opinion on welfare, especially during a time of growing polarization and funding cuts.
- Notes:
- Scholarly concentration: Political Science
- Degree: A.B. Political Science
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- Use and Reproduction
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- Rights
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Citation
Lily Zamora,
"The Politics of Race, Class, and Division: How Racial Appeals Shape Working-Class Attitudes Towards Medicaid"
(2026).
Political Science Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/h5zh-hg66
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Collection:
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Political Science Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Political Science department....