Research
Dissertation
“Misengaged, Not Disengaged: How Campaigns Persuade Latino Voters Using Economic Messaging”
Latino voters are usually assumed to trend Democratic, yet between a quarter and a third consistently back Republicans — including Republicans who use inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants. Latino independents, meanwhile, are one of the lowest-participating groups in American elections, and their persistent non-partisanship suggests that more immigration messaging is unlikely to move them. Issue polls show Latinos rank economic concerns (jobs, taxes, inflation) and social-service spending (healthcare, education) above immigration. My dissertation asks whether economic and social-service appeals can persuade and engage these voters.
I argue these appeals can land precisely because Latinos have been relatively underexposed to them. Using television ads from CMAG/Kantar Media (via the Wisconsin Advertising Project and the Wesleyan Media Project), I find that Democratic Spanish-language ads concentrate on immigration and neglect economic and social-service topics, while Republican Spanish-language ads span a wider range — economics, social services, even pro-immigrant stances. Democrats still hold a roughly 5-to-1 Spanish-language ad-volume advantage, but they spend that advantage on a narrow message.
Publications
“It’s the Economy: The Effect of Economic Policy Appeals on Latino Independents”
Political Behavior (2025). Free read · DOI
Three online survey experiments expose large samples of Latino Democrats, Republicans, and independents to economic and immigration messages from either party. Latino partisans align with their party’s positions, including on immigration. For out-party and independent evaluations, however, undocumented-immigration messaging is more polarizing than persuasive, while economic messaging produces stronger persuasive effects — especially among independents. The takeaway: Latino partisans move with their parties; Latino independents remain reachable through economic appeals from either side.
“Partisan Change with Generational Turnover: Latino Party Identification from 1989 to 2023”
With Bernard Fraga and Colin Fisk. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (2025). DOI
We examine Latino party identification across 34 years using 35 national surveys (n > 103,000) with Census-based post-stratification weights. From 2000–2012, a slight overall rise in Democratic identification was driven by foreign-born Latinos. After 2012, three patterns emerge: declining Democratic identification overall, rising Republican identification among foreign-born and older native-born Latinos, and accelerating Independent identification among native-born Millennial and Gen Z Latinos. Generational turnover and differences by nativity challenge prevailing theories of Latino partisan change.
Working Papers
“Bringing Retrospective Voting Back In: Economic Voting and Latino Electoral Volatility”
With Tyler Reny, Joshua Dyck, and Gregg “Bagel” Johnson.
Recent Latino electoral behavior has swung sharply — from greater GOP support under Bush, to large Democratic margins under Obama, to renewed Republican support under Trump. Theories grounded in group identity or ideological alignment struggle to explain these patterns. We argue that retrospective economic voting is an under-appreciated driver of this volatility: Latinos’ lower SES and weaker partisanship make them more economically responsive than other groups. Across three empirical strategies, and relative to White and Black Americans, we find that (1) Latino macropartisanship tracks economic conditions more closely, (2) Latino economic perceptions correlate more strongly with vote switching toward or away from incumbents, and (3) Latinos are more likely to reward or punish incumbents following changes in local unemployment. We close with implications for campaigns and theories of group voting.
“Who’s Targeting Latinos? How Democrats and Republicans Use Latino Identity Cues in Televised Campaign Ads from 2000–2016”
With Ali Valenzuela and Chris Flores.
We co-developed a coding scheme for Latino identity cues in CMAG TV ad data, 2000–2016. In areas with more Latinos, both parties have steadily increased their use of symbolic cues — Spanish messaging, Latino characters — over time. On immigration, the parties have diverged: Democrats use pro-immigrant Spanish-language messaging in majority-Latino areas; Republicans use anti-immigrant English-language messaging in low-Latino areas. Both parties are likely to keep pursuing Latino votes through non-immigration identity cues even as they polarize on immigration itself.
“Pa’lante: How the Young Lords Articulated a Radical Latino Political Consciousness”
The Young Lords were a radical Puerto Rican group active in New York and Chicago in the 1960s and ’70s. Their anti-establishment Latino political consciousness often put them at odds with other panethnic groups seeking institutional recognition from the U.S. government, businesses, and media. I examine how they tied community-based engagement and self-sufficiency to progressive politics on race, gender, sexuality, and class. I argue their organizational success came from foregrounding radical ideology while addressing immediate community concerns — economic opportunity, education, healthcare. Though the organization fell to factionalism, it offers an alternative conception of Latino panethnicity that diverges from the incorporation-oriented identity that eventually became dominant.