Political Party Identification

Even after the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment, African Americans were “disenfranchised in the South by intimidation and electoral trickery, including whites-only primaries, rigged literacy tests, and poll taxes” (Patterson 2011, p. 180). The Freedom Riders rode through the South, enduring harassment and imprisonment to encourage other African Americans to vote. Voter turnout in African American communities is greatly encouraged. Personally, coming from an African American family, I was strongly encouraged by my parents and grandparents to vote when I was of legal age. My family instilled the importance of voting in me at a very young age. Although voter turnout among African Americans is still fairly low, in the 2008 presidential election African Americans had the second highest voter turnout, behind non-Hispanic Caucasians (African Americans, n.d.). Race can influence voter turnout because with African Americans specifically, although rates are getting better, they are still not high.

61% of the eligible electorate voted in the 1968 presidential election (Nicholas, 1969), while only 58.6% voted in the 2012 presidential election (Kernell et al., 2016, p. 450). Although national voting rates in 2008 and 2012 were lower than historical rates, voting rates among minorities were at an all time high. This suggests that there is an inverse relationship between national voting rates and minority voting rates, at least in the context of the 1968, 2008, and 2012 elections: if one rate rose, the other fell. Further research on why this occurs would be beneficial for future presidential elections. Voting rates among immigrants are still very low compared to native born voting rates, so efforts to encourage political participation among immigrants should be increased. Efforts to increase the national voting rate (including all races and ethnicities) should also be

There have been many indications that lead to conclude that African Americans vote differently than those of the Caucasian race. From past knowledge and own understanding, many black citizens have a tendency to vote democratic, especially in the recent presidential elections. On page three of a ProQuest Dissertation done by Leonard David Thomas, he states, “… that for blacks there has been a long term and consistent struggle (i.e. social movements)” (Thomas 2010). Based on self interpretation, these struggles may have a reason on the way they vote and identify as a race. In America, there have been many issues with slavery and racism, creating a “race-based” ideology platform with more democratic views, wanting the government to have less social order on their lives. Leonard David Thomas also explained, “Racial domination means that based on race, individual and group movement are controlled. For the controlled, full participation in society is restricted. Roles and activities are determined by stereotypes and norms that sort people of color into less powerful positions. In addition, dominated groups organize to oppose their domination. By interpreting the social system as radicalized, the focus must be on the social structure” (Thomas 2010). This statement explains that, since the African American race has been oppressed and made feel lesser in politics, usually creating them to be Democratic and more liberal, or even making them less likely to vote in elections

Unlike parties in many other countries, political parties in the U.S. are relatively weak in terms of their ability to mobilize voters to register and ultimately vote on election- day. This inability to mobilize voters has direct correlation to the fact that membership and affiliation in political

Political parties today started to form in the late 1600’s. In 1787, Hamilton and other leaders joined and called themselves the Federalist. The Federalist party is the party which is most qualified for the presidency because the Federalist want a central government, want to avoid foreign affairs, and also want a central banking system. First a strong central governments.

When looking at political campaigns in recent years there has been increasing evidence in the parties’ campaigns for the support of this racial group as they are being targeted in the campaigns in a strategic manner, by campaigning in Spanish or supporting citizenship, or heavy focus on Hispanic candidates from the parties for examples the Republican focus was on candidates such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

As society rapidly changes with an influx of new ideas and issues, studying the college educated and those who are not will help evaluate behaviors and attitudes towards the government, ultimately, clearing the way to adaption into a modern society that perhaps offer remedies of educational and voting discrepancies or even close the gaps between political ideology or identification. Hence, this paper proposes the research question: How does education level influence political party identification.

Since the majority of Latinos are not legal citizens; therefore, they cannot vote in an election (Ginsbert et al, 2013). For the Latinos that can vote are more likely to vote Democratic. Voters for the Democratic are seen as urban countries, with large minority population, older and native Texans (Ginsbert et al, 2013). Teachers, business men and women, and citizens with higher educations are more likely to vote depending on who is running and their platforms. Hispanics and African-American are seen voting more for the Democratic candidates and whites voting for the Republican candidates (Ginsbert et al, 2013). Women are move likely to vote Democratic than men (Ginsbert et al,

I took three quizzes, the ‘Political Typology Quiz’, ‘The Political Party Test’ and the ‘I Side with Presidential Quiz’, to determine my own political identity. Each of the quizzes had a myriad of questions that ultimately resulted in a final result displaying my political standpoint. The first two quizzes resulted in a product of ‘Young Outsider’ and ‘Independent’, two identities that are not completely partial to neither of the two major groups, the conservatives nor liberals. Each considered politically neutral. The third quiz; however, stated that I shared various viewpoints with two major Democratic candidates, Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But, I still had a portion of my views in connection with Donald Trump and Ben Carson, two

Matsubayashi and Ueda (2010) analyzed whether white voters used candidate race as a voting cues in an election between a white and Black candidate. The data were gathered from local precinct level

The topic of race, redistricting, and minority representation in Congress has emerged as one of the most salient issues in contemporary political thought. The creation of so‑called majority minority districts has been attacked as unfair and racially polarizing by some observers and ultimately struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The study of race in relation to American politics and institutions, and, in particular, to the institution of Congress, has produced a wealth of research and literature in recent years. This scope of budding research ranges from legislative activity and Congressional voting to the electoral process and campaigning. This study examines the effects of

The percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics who voted in 2008 for the Democratic party was significantly higher than in the 2000 or 2004 election. This graph depicts how the percentage of African-Americans who voted in 2008 (Barak Obama) increased from 88% in 2004 to 95% in 2008. The percentage of Hispanics who voted for the Democratic party from 2004 to 2008 also jumped 14%. A reason for this increase in voter turnout is because Hispanic and African-American voters felt that Barak Obama, the Democratic Presidential candidate, was more capable of solving the problems these minorities felt than a Republican candidate would be.

During the 2012 presidential elections, many of the vote turnout rates revealed that the minority vote was the most decisive and important vote for the election. In fact, the minority vote, in 2012, was accredited for Barrack Obama’s presidential incumbency. An example analysis of the aforementioned statement was shown in the Minority Turnout Determined the 2012 Election article by William H. Frey. In his article Frey reports that “[the] increased minority turnout was indeed responsible for Obama’s win in the 2012 election… during this period, the (typically Democratic leaning) combined Black and Hispanic electorate rose to approach nearly quarter of eligible voters” (The Brookings Institution). Frey’s research helps illustrate how crucial,

After taking the, Political Party Quiz, I checked the results and found out I stand very far to the right on the political spectrum. This surprised me mostly because the majority of my family falls further on the left side. Researching the issues on the quiz soon after I realized that I have been exposed to many of these prior to the quiz. While on some of the issues I had a sure answer, there were quite a few that I hadn’t really ever heard of.

There are various factors that influence how a voter will cast their choice in the U.S. elections. Party identification is the most top factor in a person's voting choice. Some voters are members of either the two majors political parties; the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. These party affiliations are usually determined by a person's influences from family, peers, media and the assessment of the candidates and the issues. Independents who are not affiliated with either party does not have a particular loyalty to any party. They vote mainly on the issues (Schmidt, Shelley, Bardes, 2011, p.193).