Title: Implicit Biases in US Elections: Impact of candidate race, gender on voter turnout

Name: Hyrum Hansen
Mentor: Dr. Josh Ryan

Partisanship has routinely been observed as a driving factor in American elections. While the quantifiable results of party identification are easily digested, it remains unclear what the conditions are that give rise to strong party affiliation. Theories vary by discipline with biologically oriented political scientists asserting that party loyalty is both a heritable trait and a result of particular genetic patterns (Dawes & Fowler, 2008), and others claiming that socialization by family, church groups, and communities is the culprit (Dalton, 2016). While most admit that party identification is likely the accumulation of many factors, important consequences of partisanship remain unidentified.
In particular, it is possible for the political party with which one identifies to take a stance that runs contrary personal values. For example, democrats unapologetically venerate diversity but how does their electorate respond to races in which they choose to run a white democrat against a non-white republican? In other words, could it be possible for any number of democrats to value diversity ahead of party identity and vote for a black republican? This project attempts to establish and explore the relationship between the demographic of a nominated candidate and the support that candidate receives from the opposition party.