Strategic Invisibility: How Candidates with "Invisible Identities" Strategize in Political Campaigns

Abstract

How may candidates with “invisible identities” use their identities in campaigns? Are these strategies effective amongst racial in-group and out-group voters? In this dissertation project, I argue that Black immigrant politicians represent a case of candidates with “invisible identities” that are not phenotypically prominent but are politically meaningful in campaigns. For Black immigrant candidates, their identities as immigrants are not phenotypically obvious since most immigrants in the United States are not classified as Black, and there are no physical identity markers associated with being an immigrant. Candidates with “invisible identities” may emphasize, diminish, or connect their immigrant identities to frames to gain campaign voter support. These identity strategies are what I define as strategic invisibility. Using the social identity theory of leadership and intersectional stereotyping, I predict Black immigrant politicians are incentivized to mirror what is typical or representative of the Black community in the US to Black Americans and non-prototypicality to white Americans. Black immigrants may do this when they use strategies under strategic invisibility. Through content analyses and experimental tests, I show that Black immigrant candidates vary when and how they articulate their immigrant identities to different racial groups but are not rewarded for these strategies consistently. In Chapter One, I set out my theoretical predictions for strategies under strategic invisibility. I build these predictions using the social identity theory of leadership and intersectional stereotyping. I create a set of predictions for Black immigrant politicians and Black and white voters. In Chapter Two, I showcase how Black immigrant politicians perform these strategies in an originally collected dataset of their first congressional and state legislative campaigns for office from 2006 to 2022. Specifically, I test whether Black immigrants are varying when they mention an immigrant identity and racial frames in media interviews aimed at Black and white audiences. I use experimental methods in Chapters Three and Four to show how Black immigrants are rewarded for identity strategies among white and Black Americans. In Chapter Three, I examine whether white and Black voters reward Black immigrants differently when emphasizing or maintaining silence around their immigrant identities. In Chapter Four, I assess how Black and white voters respond differently when Black immigrants tie their immigrant identities to racial distance and commitment frames. Lastly, in the conclusion, I detail how the general findings of the project suggest that Black immigrants’ racial identities, rather than their immigrant identities alone, may primarily shape support among Black and white Americans. I also discuss the broader impacts of my project and provide detailed directions for future research in continuing this line of inquiry. This research agenda offers new insight into how candidates with “invisible identities” may navigate political campaigns and is essential to understanding the future of American democracy and identity politics.