Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-10-2023
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Marvin King
Second Advisor
Jon Winburn
Third Advisor
David Rutherford
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
Studying the growth of the Hispanic population yields specific political implications to be drawn based on the rate of growth for each Congressional District. Using Data from 2000, 2010, and 2020 Censuses along with Harvard’s Data Set titled, “Historical Congressional Legislation and District Demographics 1972-2014”, the information allows for interpretations to be made based on a Congressional District’s NOMINATE score and its percentage of the Hispanic population. After researching specific influences that help shape the Latino population in a political sense, like country of origin and level of generation in the United States, there were certain characteristics that have been demonstrated to correlate with a particular political party. Further, researching this topic presented some political theories about elected officials’ reactions to the growth of a minority population. The results of these findings warrant support for the linked fate voting theory and the racial threat theory, which are explanations for why Hispanics vote with those with shared experiences in mind and for existing populations to vote against Hispanic political agendas in times of Hispanic population growth, respectively. While region as a political indicator for the Hispanic population has been researched in the literature review, region is not tested in this research. Comparing regions like South vs. North would indicate those areas within the United States that are the most receptive to the Hispanic political agenda. Graphs that produced compelling results were scatter plots that tracked the NOMINATE score of members of the House of Representatives along with their percent Hispanic and tables that track differences in NOMINATE scores for some Congressional Districts over time. As the Hispanic population grows in Republican Congressional Districts, their NOMINATE score becomes more moderate; in Democratic Congressional Districts, their NOMINATE score becomes slightly more liberal. However, after a certain threshold, Democratic Congressional Districts also become more moderate. Applying these results to the Linked Fate theory and Racial Threat theory can produce an interesting debate on the influence of the growing Hispanic population on their Representatives. The conclusions of these findings represent that as the Hispanic population grows, they make a change in the voting behavior of their elected officials. This is important because of the rate of change that the United States is experiencing in terms of a rise in Hispanic population growth, and it gives possible indicators of the way that the future of politics will be shaped.
Recommended Citation
Purvis, Drayton, "Who Changes Who? Political Implications of the Rising Hispanic Population" (2023). Honors Theses. 2871.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2871
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