Racial resentment became one of the tightest correlates of calling yourself conservative

Weighted Pearson correlation between the racial-resentment index and self-placed liberal–conservative ideology, by ANES survey year, 1986–2024. Higher resentment travels with conservative self-placement; the link more than doubles.

Resentment ↔ conservative ideology (r) Obama era (2008–2016)

Takeaway: the line climbs off a modest +0.24 in the 1980s, accelerates after 2008, and reaches +0.59 by 2024 — race becoming part of what “conservative” means.

Pearson correlation of the resentment index with lib_con_7pt (1 liberal … 7 conservative), weighted, among respondents answering both. The index is the mean of weighted z-scored items oriented so high = more resentment (validity check: it correlates −0.39 with warmth toward Black Americans). Source: ANES Cumulative File. n = 577–6,331 per year.

An attitude about race began to predict opinions on health care

Weighted correlation between the racial-resentment index and two non-racial policy scales — government vs private health insurance (filled) and government services/spending (line) — by ANES year. Both rise, steeply after 2008.

Resentment ↔ health-insurance scale Resentment ↔ spending/services Obama era (2008–2016)

Takeaway: in the late 1980s racial resentment told you almost nothing about a person's health-care view (r = +0.07); by the 2020s it predicted it strongly (r ≈ +0.38–0.44) — the racialization of an issue that is not about race.

Pearson correlations, weighted. Health insurance is health_ins_7pt (high = private = conservative); spending is spending_7pt, reverse-scored so high = cut = conservative. Early health cells with fewer than 100 valid responses (1986, 1990, 1998) are suppressed. Source: ANES Cumulative File. Health-item n = 809–6,588 per fielded year.

Among white Americans, more racial resentment means a more conservative self-placement

Mean self-placed ideology (1 liberal … 7 conservative) by tercile of the racial-resentment index, white non-Hispanic respondents, ANES 2012–2024. Endpoints span more than two full points.

Takeaway: low-resentment whites sit left of center (3.1); high-resentment whites sit firmly on the right (5.2) — a 2.06-point gap. Even after holding party constant, a one-standard-deviation rise in resentment still moves ideology by 0.36 of a point.

Means weighted; bins are terciles of the resentment index within white non-Hispanic respondents, 2012–2024. The regression annotation uses standardized predictors (per +1 SD): the bivariate resentment coefficient is 0.90, falling to 0.36 once party identification (coefficient 1.03) is included. Source: ANES Cumulative File. n = 13,304 (bins); 13,286 (regression).