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Migration as an opportunity to register changing partisan loyalty in the United States
Author(s) -
Cho Wendy K. Tam,
Gimpel James G.,
Hui Iris S.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
population, space and place
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.398
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1544-8452
pISSN - 1544-8444
DOI - 10.1002/psp.2218
Subject(s) - relocation , loyalty , politics , neighbourhood (mathematics) , political science , political economy , preference , identification (biology) , demographic economics , sociology , economics , law , mathematical analysis , botany , mathematics , computer science , microeconomics , biology , programming language
We explore the connection between residential migration choices and political party identification by movers who change their political party registration. We find that an impressive number of migrants choose neighbourhoods that favor their new party of registration. The association between the party change of the migrant and the balance of local partisanship in their new neighborhood cannot be accounted for by a process of neighbourhood socialisation because the move is too recent for socialisation pressures to have operated. It is more likely that the migrant's political transition occurred well before the relocation and shaped the destination search. Relocation offered an opportunity to mark a previously transformed partisan preference on the voter rolls. In this sense, partisan identification is stable, but observing any large subset of migrants may make it appear unhinged, as this group collectively takes its opportunity to officially disclose their change in political party loyalty when they have a chance to relocate and must reregister.