Replication Data for: Do Stereotypes Explain Discrimination Against Minority Candidates or Discrimination in Favor of Majority Candidates?

Scholars have examined the role that negative stereotypes play in electoral discrimination against minority candidates. Incorporating literature on in-group favoritism, I argue here that some degree of this discrimination can be explained instead by voters holding positive stereotypes of majority candidates and discriminating in their favor. Relying on an original moderation-of-process survey experiment carried out in Italy, I provide evidence of electoral discrimination pertaining to immigrant-origin candidates, concentrated among right-wing citizens. I determine that stereotypes have little mediating effect on discrimination against candidates with a migration background; rather, the primary role played by stereotypes is in discrimination in favor of majority candidates, i.e. positive bias that reserves electoral benefits to them. The relevance of in-group favoritism is corroborated by the finding that large segments of the Italian voting population hold distinctively positive stereotypes of majority candidates without also negatively stereotyping immigrant-origin candidates.