This study examines political elite responses to coronavirus-related racism. Utilizing a dataset that includes every tweet from every member of Congress from January 23 to April 12, 2020, we find that Democrats and legislators of color were on the forefront of condemning anti-Asian discrimination and racism stemming from the pandemic. Moreover, we find that Democrats and legislators of color were much more likely to discuss or express concern about racism, and do so more often, than Republicans and White legislators. The findings contribute to our understanding of political representation and the role of elites in combating racism.
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Arora et al. (2020) studied this question.