Racial Spillover in Political Attitudes: Generalizing to a New Leader and Context

Racial-spillover theory proposes that salient associations between prominent racialized politicians and particular political objects-e.g., links between a party leader and her policy proposals-can generate associations between racial and political attitudes via the politician's perceived racial characteristics. Thus, opinion in relation to policies and other political objects with no manifest connection to race becomes infused with racial attitudes. While multiple studies of Barack Obama's influence on political attitudes uncover such effects, we test the generality of the phenomenon by examining the case of Jagmeet Singh, the first non-White leader of a major party in Canada. Using an experimental study of policy attitudes and an observational study of 31 years of party evaluations, we uncover clear evidence of racial spillover. The findings suggest racial spillover does not depend on peculiar features of U.S. politics or of the U.S. presidency, and may generalize to racialized political leaders in other contexts.