Identity, Group Consciousness, and the Development of Minority Political Ambition

What motivates racial minorities to enter politics? Existing research primarily examines minority candidates at election time, focusing on strategic decisions on when to appear on a ballot. Absent from this scholarship is a comprehensive understanding of how minorities decide to enter politics in the first place. Using both experimental and observational data, this paper investigates minorities' initial decisions to run for office. In two field experiments embedded in a real-world candidate mobilization effort, I find that emphasizing racial group consciousness---the desire to advance the interests of one's racial group---increases both immediate information-seeking and longer-term commitment to candidacy among politically active minority members. An observational study leveraging city-level exposure to police brutalities as a proxy for race conscious motivation finds modest evidence of increased Black representation in subsequent local elections. These findings offer new insights into the nuanced dynamics of minority candidate emergence and, in turn, descriptive representation in American politics.