Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Voting Preference, Religion And Ethnicity’S Impact On Party Identification, Benjamin Gourley

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Voting in the Presidential election always comes down to the wire, which leads political scientists to contemplate the most efficient ways for candidates to target and seize voters. The study explores how ethnic and religious values affect a voter’s party identification. This study will identify theories of opinion formation and connect these theories to the values that religious and ethnic voters rely on when voting for a candidate. This study hypothesizes three things: first, religious groups will tend to vote for candidates that hold the same religious values. Second, Ethnic groups will tend to vote for candidates that share the …