Voting for Disabled Candidates

Despite important advances in the rights of disabled people over the past decades, stigma and prejudice remain widespread. Meanwhile, disabled political representatives are few and far between. This raises the question: do voters discriminate against disabled candidates? Using data from conjoint experiments in the US and the UK, this study shows that candidates with physical or sensory impairments are preferred by voters on the left while receiving less support from voters on the right. However, these effects are almost entirely due to voters’ perceptions of disabled candidates as more left wing. Disability has little direct effect on the vote choice – except among left-wing voters, who reward left-wing disabled candidates for representing under-represented groups. The findings expand our understanding of the role of disability in electoral politics and yield important insights for candidates and parties who are concerned about discrimination at the ballot box and their campaign strategies.