Black–Brown Coalitions in Local City Council Elections

Abstract Previous work suggests that African American and Latino voters lack political cohesiveness. Recently, these findings have been cited by opponents of “minority aggregation,” which is the idea that African Americans and Latinos can be thought of as constituting a single “class of citizens” when filing claims under the Voting Rights Act. I replicate one influential study, Rocha (2007), with updated data and greater attentiveness to moderating conditions that are meaningful in voting rights law. My findings suggest African Americans and Latinos are more cohesive than previously thought, especially in majority–minority jurisdictions. Furthermore, cohesion cannot be explained solely by shared partisanship.