Immigration Opinion in the 50 States

in five minutes!

Justin Dollman

Estimating State Opinion

  • Disaggregation
    • National polls from 1976 to 1988
    • Created state subsets
      • Ideological self-identification
    • Random sample from each state ✅
    • Need same question repeated ❌
    • No year-to-year variation ❌

Estimating State Opinion

  • Model response as a function of respondent characteristics
  • Multiple Regression and Poststratification (“Mr. P”)
  • Can get small-area estimates with minimal data ✅
  • Estimates are not independent of demographic factors ❌

Cooperative Election Survey

  • 2020 ANES had 8,000
  • 2020 CES had 60,000
  • CES began in 2006
  • Conducted annually
  • Odd years
  • Matched sample from a Web access panel (YouGov)

Example Questions: 2012

What do you think the U.S. government should do about immigration? Select all that apply.

  • Grant legal status to all illegal immigrants who have held jobs and paid taxes for at least 3 years, and not been convicted of any felony crimes
  • Increase the number of border patrols on the US-Mexican border
  • Allow police to question anyone they think may be in the country illegally
  • Fine US businesses that hire illegal immigrants
  • Prohibit illegal immigrants from using emergency hospital care and public schools
  • Deny automatic citizenship to American-born children of illegal immigrants

Example Questions: 2018

What do you think the U.S. government should do about immigration? Select all that apply.

  • Increase spending on border security by $25 billion, including building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico
  • Provide legal status to children of immigrants who are already in the United States and were brought to the United States by their parents. Provide these children the option of citizenship in 10 years if they meet citizenship requirements and commit no crimes.
  • Reduce legal immigration by eliminating the visa lottery and ending family-based migration
  • Withhold federal funds from any local police department that does not report to the federal government anyone they identify as an illegal immigrant
  • “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act: Withholds federal funds from states and localities that do not follow federal immigration laws.”
  • “Require local police departments to report to the federal government anyone they identify as an illegal immigrant.”
  • Send to prison any person who has been deported from the United States and reenters the United States.

CCES & Immigration

  • Covers almost all years from inception through 2021
    • 2008 & 2009 😪
  • Rich variety of questions
  • Variety is the spice of life but
  • Variety is the death of a would-be trend tracker
  • Solution?

(h)IRT

  • (Hierarchical) Item Response Theory
  • Estimates latent trait given observed responses
  • Developed in 1960s for precisely this type of problem!
  • From individuals to groups
  • Xiang Zhou (2019)

Validation

  • Independent method
    • Multiple imputation
    • PCA
  • Convergent validity
    • Left-right ideological self-placement
    • LIBCON scale (1-7)

Validation Results (1/2)

Validation Results (2/2)

Validated 🎉

Now what?

A Public Good

Year State Immigration Opinion
2006 Connecticut -0.2730379
2006 Tennessee 0.2677866
2007 Minnesota -0.1698985
2007 Nebraska -0.0024736
2010 Utah -0.0332762
2010 Arizona 0.1937900
2011 Mississippi -0.0398584
2011 New Jersey -0.3129487
2012 Georgia -0.2777324
2012 North Carolina -0.2602165
2013 New Hampshire -0.3067144
2013 Michigan -0.3284012
2014 South Carolina -0.1356676
2014 Tennessee -0.0571431
2015 Nebraska -0.3032076
2015 Maine -0.0495752
2016 Iowa -0.3274821
2016 Maine -0.3560384
2017 Alabama -0.4232489
2017 Indiana -0.6398700
2018 Louisiana -0.4129488
2018 South Carolina -0.4890113
2019 New Mexico -0.7167274
2019 Utah -0.6453240
2020 Tennessee -0.5836160
2020 Rhode Island -0.9055134

Uses

  • Dependent Variable
  • Independent Variable
  • Descriptively

In lieu of a conclusion

Polarization application!

Polarization application

  • Spatial aggregation: State
  • Temporal aggregation: 4 years
  • Partisan disaggregation
  • Unit: State-Presidential Term-PID

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C’est Fini!

justin.dollman@stonybrook.edu