Replication Data for: The Partisan Effects of News Coverage Highlighting Inclusion in Congress

After US elections, news stories frequently highlight how the United States Congress has a higher proportion of women and is more racially and ethnically diverse than at any point in history. While some literature suggests that this coverage may diminish legitimacy and support for democratic norms, other research suggests that as descriptive representation increases, citizens – including white people and men – have more trust in their institutions and perceive them to be more legitimate. However, little is known about the effect of this type of news coverage on citizens’ attitudes toward Congress and democracy as a whole. Given these competing expectations, we conduct a series of experiments to determine how portrayals of a diverse Congress affect its perceived legitimacy and support for democratic norms related to Congress’s power. We hypothesize that as Congress diversifies faster than the executive branch, the motivation to protect traditional hierarchies will undermine both the perceived legitimacy of Congress and the commitment to democratic restraints on Presidential power among white people and men. Our results are mixed. Based on two survey experiments with nationally representative samples, we find that Democrats perceive Congress as having more institutional legitimacy when informed of its diversity while Republicans show no difference in their legitimacy perceptions when compared to control conditions. Furthermore, we find no evidence that information about Congress’s diversity decreases support for democratic norms.