We Choose You
How Black Voters Decide Which Candidates to Support

Analyzes Black votership to explain the candidate selection process and demonstrate how various identity groups choose who to vote for.

Julian J. Wamble (Author)

9781009483124, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 February 2025

246 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.471 kg

'The book helps make sense of previous Black voter behavior and provides a road map for scholars seeking to better understand Black political attitudes and behavior. … Recommended.' M. R. Michelson, CHOICE

In We Choose You, Julian J. Wamble investigates the sophisticated process of Black voter candidate selection. Contrary to the common assumption that Black voters will support Black politicians, Wamble explores what considerations, outside of race, partisanship, and gender, Black voters use to choose certain representatives over others. The book complicates our view of candidate selection, expands our understanding of identity's role in the representative-constituent paradigm, and provides a framework through which scholars can determine a candidates preferability for other identity groups. Wamble uses original experimental tests on Black respondents to prove that Black voters prefer a politician, regardless of race, who shows a commitment to prioritizing the racial group's interest through personal sacrifice. Novel and timely, this book makes an important contribution to our understanding of Black political behavior and will only gain salience as the significance of the Black vote increases in upcoming elections.

Acknowledgments
List of figures
List of tables
Introduction
1. The historical foundations of community commitment
2. Community commitment signalling framework
3. The nuances in black voters' candidate selection process
4. An aggregate test of community commitment signalling
5. Community commitment signalling & black candidate evaluations
6. Community commitment signalling & white candidate evaluations
Conclusion
References
Index
Appendices.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]