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Category: Project

Description: The April 2018 article of Diana Mutz, “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and contradicts prior sociological research on the 2016 election. Mutz’s article received widespread media coverage because of the strength of its primary conclusion, declaimed in its title. The current article is a critical reanalysis of the models offered by Mutz, using the data files released along with her article. Contrary to her conclusions, this article demonstrates that (1) the relative importance of economic interests and status threat cannot be estimated effectively with her cross-sectional data and (2) her panel data are consistent with the claim that economic interests are at least as important as status threat. The preexisting sociological literature has offered interpretations that incorporate economic interests, and, as a result, provides a more credible explanation of the 2016 election.