Unveiling Ableism: Experimental Evidence on the Relationships between Disability and Electability
P5-S112-1
Presented by: Rachel Blum
Nearly 25 percent of Americans are disabled, as are at least 10 percent of federal office holders. Yet research on disability and disability discrimination (ableism) lags far behind political science research on other marginalized identities. In this study, we use a conjoint experiment to understand how information about a candidate's disability status impacts voters' evaluations of that candidate, over and against other candidate attributes such as gender, race, political experience, and ideology. In a separate experiment, we isolate the relationship between disability and a candidate's age. This research is a key step in increasing our understanding of public opinion on the relationship between multiple, intersecting marginalized identities in the U.S. electoral context, and has important implications for descriptive representation.
Keywords: candidates, conjoint, disability, electability, intersectionality