Abstract
In their classic 1960 work, Angus Campbell and his colleagues offer a model to explain political behavior. They posit a funnel of causality, whereby the causal flow moved from remote long-term forces, such as socio-demographics and party identification, to more immediate short-term forces, such as issues and candidates, finally arriving at the vote choice itself. This explanation has withstood the test of time in studies of the United States and other democracies. The question at hand in this article is how Latin American immigrants comport themselves in the national political environment of the United States. Can the political preferences of Hispanic immigrants be explained pretty much the way the political preferences of native-born Americans can be explained? In other words, does the funnel of causality apply to them? Our findings, based on analysis of 2012 American National Election Study and Latino Immigrant National Election Study survey data, indicate that it does.
- Copyright © 2016 by Russell Sage Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Reproduction by the United States Government in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose. We thank Jay McCann, Michael Jones-Correa, the Russell Sage Foundation workshop participants, and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Direct correspondence to: Michael S. Lewis-Beck, at michael-lewis-beck{at}uiowa.edu, Department of Political Science, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242; and Mary Stegmaier at stegmaierm{at}missouri.edu, Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211.
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