Replication Data for: Which Party Represents My Group? The Group Foundations of Partisan Choice and Polarization

While groups have been central to thinking about partisan identity and choices, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to the role of perceptions of the group composition of the parties. We explore this critical linking information in the context of religious groups, some of the chief pivots around which the parties have been sorting. Using three national samples, we show that perceptions of the religious group composition of the parties are often biased – evangelicals overestimate the presence of evangelicals within the Republican Party and the irreligious within the Democratic Party. The key finding is that individuals are far more likely to identify with the party in which they believe their group is well represented – a finding which clarifies the role of party image shifts in constructing partisanship, the limits of the culture war motif, and the importance of social perception in shaping beliefs about party representation.

尽管群体始终是学界探讨党派身份与政党选择的核心议题，但令人意外的是，现有研究极少关注民众对政党群体构成的认知所发挥的作用。我们以宗教群体为研究场景探讨这一关键关联信息——宗教群体正是当前两党进行选民群体整合的核心枢纽之一。我们依托三份全国性样本展开研究，结果显示民众对政党宗教群体构成的认知普遍存在偏差：福音派选民会高估共和党内部福音派群体的占比，同时高估民主党内部无宗教信仰群体的占比。本研究的核心发现是：个体更倾向于认同那些他们认为能很好代表自身所属群体的政党——这一发现厘清了政党形象转变在构建党派认同中的作用、文化战争叙事的局限性，以及社会认知在塑造民众对政党代表性认知中的重要性。