Assignment 3

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I predict that the residents of MD-01 will support more restrictive immigration politics than the residents of Maryland as a whole. To test these predictions, I will measure support for the border wall and DACA in MD and MD-01. I use data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey. I predict that residents of MD-01 will be more likely to support the border wall and less likely to support DACA than the residents of MD as a whole. I draw mostly from Wong (2017 and 2014) and Casellas and Leal (2013) in these predictions, as MD-01 is less Latino, less foreign-born, and more Republican than Maryland as a whole.

 

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Data comes from the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, conducted by YouGov and 50 research universities. 1041 Marylanders and 126 residents of MD-01 responded to the survey. The survey asks hundreds of questions, including on respondents’ support for the border wall and DACA. The question on the wall asks respondents if they support or oppose a government effort to “Increase spending on border security by $25 billion, including building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.” The question on DACA asks respondents if they would support or oppose a government effort to “Provide legal status to children of immigrants who are already in the United States and were brought to the United States by their parents. Provide these children the option of citizenship in 10 years if they meet citizenship requirements and commit no crimes. (DACA).”

 

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The results indicate that 76% of Marylanders surveyed and 70% of MD-01 residents support DACA. 38% of Marylanders and 48% of MD-01 residents support the border wall. While these results nominally support my hypotheses, the magnitude is small. I will further discuss this in slide 4.

 

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The difference between MD and MD-01 in support for DACA and the border wall were only 6 pp and 10 pp, respectively. While both support my hypothesis in direction, it is unclear whether they do in magnitude. It is entirely possible that DACA is simply a popular program, and the border wall is unpopular. Significant majorities of both MD and MD-01 support DACA, and majorities of both oppose the border wall. The demographic factors underlying my theory may contribute slightly, but cannot outweigh the respective popularity of each program. Future research should use different sample to conduct similar research and conduct regression analysis to isolate causal mechanisms. This study may also be limited by the fact that only 4% of Maryland survey respondents were Latino, while 9% of Marylanders are Latino.