Identity isn't everything -- how far do demographics take us towards self-identified party ID?

TL;DR

This paper investigates how demographics and identity strength together influence self-identified party affiliation, revealing that demographics alone are sometimes insufficient and that considering identity strength improves predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a predictive framework that assesses the combined effect of demographics and identity strength on party identification, highlighting the varying importance across groups.

Findings

Demographics predict party ID well for some groups like Black Democrats.

Including identity strength improves predictions for groups like Hispanic Republicans.

Demographics alone do not fully explain the diversity of party identification within groups.

Abstract

How well do demographics explain party identification? Demographics are related to party identification in political polls, news articles, and academic publications. Yet, there is a diversity of party identification even within demographic groups which have historically been attached to one party. And some groups lack a clear connection to either party. It may be that demographics on their own fail to account for the fact that people generally belong to a variety of groups. They must select the groups which are most important to them when shaping a political identity, and may choose to construct an identity relatively unattached to any specific demographic group to which they belong. This prompts the question, do we need to consider measures of identity strength when using demographics to explain party identification? We utilize a predictive framework to address these questions and find that demographics are highly predictive for some groups (e.g., Black Democrats), while others benefit from the inclusion of identity strength (e.g., Hispanic Republicans).