Gender, Immigration, and the Republican Coalition: Attitude Activation Versus Attitude Change in the 2020–2024 Electoral Transition

Abstract

The 2024 presidential election resulted in the following paradox: despite unprecedented affective polarization, mega-partisan identity alignment, and historical party loyalty, Donald Trump expanded his electoral coalition. This thesis aims to demonstrate how this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon can be accounted for by distinguishing between attitude change and attitude activation. The results suggest that Trump's coalition expansion occurred via two separate, independent mechanisms. First, structural partisan consolidation was the principal mechanism driving individuals toward Trump. Second, true conversion among those who were not already Trump supporters in 2020 was predicted, not by attitude change, but by attitude activation. Gender resentment proved the most predictive of switching (β = .376) while having no significant relationship to within-person attitude change in the first difference model – indicating attitude activation. Methodologically, this thesis suggests that longitudinal panel data and within-person designs are prerequisites for disentangling attitude change from attitude activation.