The “tough-on-crime” left: Race, gender, and elections of law-and-order democrats

In June 2021, Eric Adams — a former captain of the New York City Police Department — won the Democratic mayoral primary for the city of New York with 30.7% of the vote. Adams’ candidate profile struck many as unique — a Black man, he paradoxically represented a liberal yet tough-on-crime approach. In this paper, we analyze how tough-on-crime candidates’ identities impact their favorability among progressive voters. We focus on both race (e.g., Black vs white candidates) and gender (e.g., female vs male candidates). Building on literature regarding stereotypes, perceived policy competency, and expectations among progressive voters, we hypothesize that tough-on-crime candidates will be less favorable to Democratic voters, but this will depend on candidate identity. We expect both Black and/or female tough-on-crime candidates to experience less pushback for tough-on-crime stances compared to their white and/or male counterparts. We test these expectations via a conjoint experiment included in an original, nationally representative survey of U.S. adults. Our results support the idea that Democrats punish tough-on-crime candidates, but this effect is conditional on candidate identity. Namely, Democratic Black candidates are not strongly punished for being tough-on-crime. Unexpectedly, we find that female Democratic candidates experience more electoral penalty than their male counterparts when taking tough-on-crime positions.