White identity and immigration: what drove US voters to switch parties?

A new study using American National Election Study panel data found that white Americans who said being white was important to them, or who wanted less immigration, were far more likely to switch to the Republican Party between 2016 and 2020. Those who felt warmly toward Black Lives Matter were far more likely to switch to the Democratic Party.

The findings are directional. The study reports that these identity-related views predicted switching, but it does not establish that racial identity alone caused the shift, and the evidence available does not include specific coefficients, odds ratios, or significance levels. The author list and final publication status are not stated in the material describing the study.

That caution matters, because the study lands in the middle of a broader argument about the Republican coalition that predates it and will outlast it. The GOP's anti-immigration stance is relatively recent, popularized by the Tea Party in 2010 and Donald Trump's 2016 election, after earlier Republican presidents embraced immigration. A Council on Foreign Relations study group found that white working-class Trump voters widely believe immigration takes jobs from Americans and support lower immigration levels and a closed border. A Manhattan Institute survey of nearly 3,000 voters examined today's Republican coalition, including identity politics, populism, and racial bias, and asked whether Trump's coalition can remain cohesive after he exits the stage.

Those are separate pieces of evidence, not findings from the same study. Read together, they describe a coalition whose composition and durability are contested questions, not settled ones.

If racial identity and immigration attitudes were major drivers of partisan switching among white Americans from 2016 to 2020, that has implications for how both parties build majorities, how they talk about immigration and racial justice, and whether the realignment is stable or contingent on specific issues and moments. The study is one data point in that argument. It is not the argument's conclusion.