Both African American and LGBT voters can prove pivotal in electoral outcomes, but we know little about civic participation among Black LGBT people. Although decades of research on political participation has made it almost an article of faith that members of dominant groups (such as White people and individuals of higher socioeconomic status) vote at higher rates than their less privileged counterparts, recent work has suggested that there are circumstances under which members of marginalized groups might participate at higher rates. Some of this research suggests that political participation might also increase when groups perceive elections as particularly threatening. We argue that when such threats are faced by marginalized groups, the concern to protect hard-earned rights can activate a sense of what we call “political hypervigilance,” and that such effects may be particularly pronounced among members of intersectionally-marginalized groups such as LGBT African Americans. To test this theory, we use original data from the 2016 National Survey on HIV in the Black Community, a nationally-representative survey of Black Americans, to explore the relationship among same-sex sexual behavior, attitudes toward LGBT people, and respondent voting intentions in the 2016 presidential election. We find that respondents who reported having engaged in same-sex sexual behavior were strongly and significantly more likely to say they “definitely will vote” compared to respondents who reported no same-sex sexual behavior. More favorable views of LGBT individuals and issues (marriage equality) were also associated with greater intention to vote. We argue that these high rates provide preliminary evidence that political hypervigilance can, in fact, lead to increased political engagement among members of marginalized groups.

This paper takes up the question of who asks racial-ethnic minority voters to vote, relative to white voters? We examine more closely the targeted mobilization strategies in the 2016 Presidential election cycle and highlight the roles of race, demographic context, and mobilization source on patterns of reported mobilization. Utilizing the 2016 Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey we model the impact of demographic profiles on the probability of mobilization by white mobilizers and compare that to mobilization by minorities. Our analysis suggests that even when controlling for battleground context and likely voter characteristics, minority voters are neglected, but this is contingent on the racial demographics of those doing the mobilizing. These findings shed light on the discrepancy of turnout across racial and ethnic groups in the United States

This paper highlights differences in evangelical identity and its association with political attitudes across racial groups. It finds that White evangelicals hold more conservative views than Black, Latinx, and Asian American evangelicals, despite similar levels of religiosity. White evangelicals' more conservative political attitudes are driven by a sense of in-group embattlement, or the idea that their group faces as much or more discrimination as persecuted outgroups. This sense of in-group embattlement is distinct from the effects of economic resources, economic anxiety, partisanship, region (South) and generalized conservative outlook. The paper draws on survey data collected in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election.