Racial Antipathy, Not Just Partisanship, Drives Belief in Voter Fraud, UCLA Study Finds
A new article in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, authored by a team of scholars from the UCLA Voting Rights Project, is the first published study to document with statistical analysis that many white Americans’ belief in voter fraud was not based on actual election fears but rather was driven by negative views toward minorities.
Specifically, data from three surveys of more than 8,000 white respondents reveal that racial antipathy — particularly a negative view of Blacks, Latinos and Asians — played a pivotal role in shaping beliefs about voter fraud as well as belief that the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was justified.
Authored by UCLA Voting Rights Project scholars Tye Rush, Chelsea Jones, Michael Herndon and Matt Barreto, the study draws on data from the 2020 American National Election Study pre- and post-election surveys and the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey implemented after the insurrection.
While partisan loyalty and allegiance to Donald Trump did play a role, the study suggests that perceptions of voter fraud were inextricably linked to anxieties about the changing demographic landscape of the United States. The widespread adoption of white replacement theory — the idea that racial minorities are “replacing” white Americans in political and social power — was a significant motivator for both supporting the insurrection and ongoing political polarization, the study found.
“Our study highlights an urgent issue in contemporary American politics,” said Rush, lead author of the article, who earned his PhD in political science from UCLA in 2023. “If we do not address the racialized perceptions that underlie many of these political behaviors, we risk undermining trust in democratic institutions and perpetuating political violence.”
UCLA Luskin Scholars Ranked Among Most Influential
More than 20 current and former UCLA Luskin faculty members have been recognized as among the world’s most influential researchers in the most recent Stanford-Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List.
Compiled by Stanford University in partnership with the publishing company Elsevier and SciTech Strategies, the list includes more than 100,000 researchers across 22 scientific fields and 174 subfields. The ranking is designed to offer visibility across disciplines, bringing attention to work that might otherwise remain niche or underappreciated.
The 2024 list includes numerous current and former UCLA Luskin-affiliated faculty and scholars:
- Laura Abrams, professor of social welfare
- Ron Avi Astor, professor of social welfare
- Evelyn Blumenberg, professor of urban planning
- Randall Crane, professor emeritus of urban planning
- Dana Cuff, professor of architecture/urban design and urban planning
- Robert W. Fairlie, distinguished professor of public policy and economics
- Martin Gilens, professor of public policy, political science and social welfare
- Yeheskel (Zeke) Hasenfeld, distinguished research professor emeritus of social welfare
- Jody Heymann, distinguished professor of health policy and management, public policy and medicine
- Aurora Jackson, professor emerita of social welfare
- Duncan Lindsey, professor emeritus of social welfare
- Susanne Lohmann, professor of political science and public policy
- Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, distinguished professor of urban planning and interim dean of UCLA Luskin
- James Lubben, professor emeritus of social welfare
- Adam Millard-Ball, professor of urban planning
- Jack Needleman, professor of health policy and management and public policy
- Ananya Roy, professor of urban planning, social welfare and geography
- Allen J. Scott, distinguished professor emeritus of public policy and geography
- Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning
- Michael Storper, distinguished professor of regional and international development in urban planning
- Brian D. Taylor, professor of urban planning and public policy
- John Villasenor, professor of public policy, electrical and computer engineering, management and law
- Martin Wachs, distinguished professor emeritus of urban planning
- Lynne G. Zucker, professor emeritus of public policy
Balancing Prosperity and Democracy: A Challenge for Mexico
A new analysis of Mexico’s record on effective governance shows that the nation still outpaces many other Latin American countries yet has struggled to catch up with more developed nations such as the United States and Canada.
The report, using insights from the 2024 Berggruen Governance Index (BGI), sets the stage for Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, whose election in June 2024 extended the leadership of the leftist Morena party.
Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, embarked on ambitious programs of state building and economic nationalism during his tenure from 2018 to 2024, but these efforts have been criticized for contributing to democratic backsliding, particularly in the conservative U.S. press.
“Mexico’s governance trajectory, and specifically the approach taken by the ruling Morena party since 2018, presents a decidedly mixed record,” according to the report authored by researchers from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute and the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany.
“On one hand, Mexico has fostered economic growth, expanded its infrastructure and public goods, and recovered some of the lost ground in state capacity. On the other, Mexico still trails other large Latin American democracies, such as Brazil, in democratic accountability.”
One of Sheinbaum’s key dilemmas will be to balance a more expanded and effective reach of the state without undermining democratic norms. This will be a difficult balance to strike, given resistance to changes like judicial reform as well as the nationalization of resources and use of the military for state-building projects, the report says.
UCLA Luskin Public Policy Alumni Elected to Office
Four UCLA Luskin Master of Public Policy alumni have turned their records of civic engagement into successful bids for public office. The following MPP grads were elected or reelected in November:
- Isaac Bryan MPP ’22 won reelection to his seat in the California State Assembly and will continue to represent District 55 in Los Angeles.
- Bryan “Bubba” Fish MPP ’24 is the newest member of the Culver City City Council.
- In Colorado, Lindsay Gilchrist MPP ’12, won a seat in the state House of Representatives.
- Guadalupe “Lupita” Gutierrez MPP ’23 is the first Latina elected to the Waterford City Council in Stanislaus County, California.
UCLA Luskin Doctoral Students Awarded Fulbright-Hays Fellowships
Two UCLA Luskin PhD students have been awarded fellowships through the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program.
Juan Carlos Jauregui of Social Welfare and Andrés F. Ramirez of Urban Planning are among 15 UCLA graduate students to be named Fulbright-Hays fellows, the most chosen from any research university nationwide for the fourth year.
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Fulbright-Hays program allows doctoral candidates to study aspects of a society or societies, including their cultures, economy, history and international relations. UCLA’s 2024 Fulbright-Hays fellows come from diverse disciplines and will conduct their research in Colombia, Egypt, Guinea, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Nigeria, Spain and Taiwan.
Jauregui will study in the Amazonian region of Loreto, Peru. His research will explore intersectional stigma, mental health and HIV treatment engagement among LGBTQ+ young people living with HIV in Loreto. The project will prioritize knowledge that will improve community-based services and interventions that address the mental health and HIV care needs of this vulnerable population.
Ramirez will conduct fieldwork in Colombia. His research will examine how Indigenous struggles for urban citizenship challenge property regimes and reconfigure the relations between state and Indigenous people. Working alongside Indigenous urban communities in Bogotá, he will identify oppositional urban planning practices between the state and Indigenous groups, as well as forms of Indigenous sovereignty in the city.
The Evolution of Black Neighborhoods, Through a Hip-Hop Lens
A new book by UCLA Luskin Professor Michael Lens examines the characteristics and trajectories of Black neighborhoods across the United States over the 50 years since passage of the Fair Housing Act.
In “Where the Hood At?,” Lens uses the growing influence of hip-hop music, born out of Black neighborhoods in the 1970s, to frame a discussion of the conditions that have allowed these communities to flourish or decline.
Published this week by the Russell Sage Foundation, the book reveals significant gaps in quality of life between Black Americans and other racial and ethnic groups, and also shows that neighborhood conditions vary substantially region by region. For example, Black neighborhoods are more likely to thrive in the South but are particularly disadvantaged in the Midwest and Rust Belt.
Lens offers several recommendations for policies designed to uplift Black neighborhoods. One radical proposal is implementing programs, such as tax breaks for entrepreneurs or small business owners, that would encourage Black Americans to move to prosperous communities in the South and consolidate their political and economic power. He also calls for building more affordable housing in Black suburbs, where poverty levels are lower than in central cities.
Lens is a professor of urban planning and public policy, chair of the Luskin Undergraduate Programs and associate faculty director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. His research and teaching explore the potential of public policy to address housing market inequities that disadvantage low-income families and communities of color.
