Descriptive Representation in an Era of Polarization

Studies of descriptive representation find that voters more positively evaluate representatives who share their ascriptive characteristics. I argue that this pattern can be upended when voters develop more positive affect toward outgroups. In the United States, Democrats have increasingly expressed more positive views toward marginalized groups, while Republicans’ attitudes about these groups have not shifted. Under such conditions, my argument predicts that the effect of representatives’ race and gender on constituent evaluations should vary more by constituents’ partisanship than by their own ascriptive characteristics. Applying a difference-in-differences design to 2008–2020 Cooperative Congressional Election Study data, I find that Democrats of all backgrounds now approve more highly of Congress members from historically marginalized groups, whereas Republicans’ approval is unrelated to member identity. Democrats also give women and minority representatives leeway to diverge ideologically. These findings demonstrate that polarizing attitudes about race and gender can disrupt classic patterns in how constituents evaluate representatives.