Identity, Ideology, and Voting in Africa: Stacey Abrams versus Brian Kemp in Côte d’Ivoire

Elections in the United States are a global event. From electoral interference by countries like China, Russia, and Iran to expressed preferences from people around the world, everyone everywhere seems to have a view about candidates in the United States. Typically, the most deeply expressed preferences come from other western countries like Canada or those in Europe. Less is known about the preferences of voters in the developing world about U.S. elections. How would Africans vote in a U.S. election? Would they choose candidates based on ideology or identity? The purpose of the study is to examine ideology versus identity and voting preferences in Africa through the context of the U.S. election. Using the November 8th election, this study will examine how voters would behave in the race for Georgia governor between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp. To examine the effect of ideology (conservative versus liberal) versus identity (race), a survey experiment will be conducted. Randomly selected respondents will be shown one of five versions of a survey discussing two real candidates for office in Georgia: the first version will describe their positions only with Abrams being liberal and Kemp conservative; version two will show pictures of each candidate; version three will show the policy positions and pictures. To control for gender, we will also have a version in which Abrams is replaced by Raphael Warnock in which the choice will still be against Kemp. Here there will be three versions including policy position alone, policy plus picture, and only picture.