Marques Zarate, and Angel Armenta. Se Habla Espanol: Spanish-language Appeals and Candidate Evaluations in the United States.

Virtual Conference

Many political candidates have exhibited their ability to speak Spanish in efforts to increase support among Hispanic voters. We Many political candidates have exhibited their ability to speak Spanish in efforts to increase support among Hispanic voters. We argue that candidates, both Anglo and Hispanic, can use Spanish to signal closeness to Hispanics, attempting to bridge a gap (in the case of Anglo candidates) or doubling down on their shared identities (in the case of Hispanic candidates). Further, we posit that the effectiveness of these language appeals is conditional on fluency. To test this, we run an experiment where participants listen to an audio clip of a hypothetical candidate's stump speech. We vary the race/ethnicity of the candidate (Anglo or Hispanic) and the language of the speech (English, poor Spanish, and fluent Spanish). We find that Hispanic support for both the Anglo and Hispanic candidates is higher in the fluent Spanish condition compared with the English-only condition. Relative to the English condition, poor Spanish does not increase support for the Anglo candidate but it decreases support for the Hispanic candidate. Since candidates must worry about alienating non-Hispanic voters, we run the same experiment with Anglo respondents. Similar to Hispanics, Anglo respondents also exhibited higher levels of support for a Spanish-speaking candidate. Our results suggest that candidates can effectively appeal to the Hispanic electorate through Spanish-language appeals.