In search of the angry white male: Gender, race, and issues in the 1994 elections

This chapter examines a broader combination of both attitudes and mobilization, a picture of the "ambivalent female" emerges in addition to the angry white male. Aside from the change in the party control of Congress, the aspect of the 1994 elections that has probably received the most attention from media analysts is the supposed phenomenon of the "revenge of the angry white males." Qualifying past descriptions with race and gender distinctions, media analysts accounted for this phenomenon by positing that several related factors— that together constituted the angry-white-male thesis—have been occurring in the lives and in the minds of white male voters. Research on voter turnout has found that among other influences, the following are particularly strong: age, education, strength of partisan attachment, employment status, external political efficacy, and contact made by the parties. As in past elections, age and education were important predictors of turnout, as were partisanship and political efficacy.