Replication Data for: The Dynamics of Racial Resentment Across the 50 U.S. States

Although many scholars who study the role of racial animus on Americans’ political attitudes and policy preferences do so to help us understand national-level politics, (racialized) policy is largely shaped at the state level. States are laboratories of policy innovation whose experiments can exacerbate or ameliorate racial inequality. With that in consideration, we aim to develop state-level scores of racial resentment. By employing linear multilevel regression and post-stratification weighting techniques and by linking nationally-representative survey data with U.S. Census data, we create time-varying, dynamic state level estimates of racial resentment from 1988 to 2016. Through this endeavor we are able to explore whether and the extent to which subnational levels of racial attitudes fluctuate over time, and provide a comparative analysis of state-level racial resentment scores across space and time. We find that states’ levels of racial animus change slowly, but some exhibit increases over time while others do just the opposite. Additionally, we find that Southern states’ reputation for championing the highest levels of racial resentment has been challenged by states across various regions of the United States. Finally, when we examine state-year data, we find that many states have exhibited their lowest levels of symbolic racism decades ago, contrary to the traditional American narrative of racial progress.