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Current Research

Research 1

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Truly at Home? Social Belonging and Political Engagement in Times of Exclusion


This multi-method project investigates what drives Latinos to have varying perceptions of social inclusion, and how a sense of perceived belonging to US society, or lack thereof, influence Latino political participation. The project contends that feelings of belonging, social membership, and inclusion are fundamental to political incorporation and political participation. This project finds that perceptions of belonging to US society, as well as perceived sense of respect by other Americans, are strongly associated with higher levels of political engagement for Latinos.

Angela X. Ocampo

Research 2

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Latino voters, party preferences and split-ticket voting in Texas


Texas is the second state with the highest number of Latino eligible voters after California (6.5 million). In 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump made gains with Latino voters (Corral and Leal 2020). Some argue that there is an increasing alignment of Latino voters' ideology, issue positions, and vote choice (Fraga et al. 2024). In these set of papers, we investigate evidence of an alignment between issue positions and vote choice among Latino Texans. We also investigate: what drove Latino TX vote choice in the 2024 US presidential election, and among Latino Texans, who was most likely to vote switch between the Presidential Ticket and the Senate, and what explains vote switching among Latinos in Texas?

Angie E. Gutierrez and Angela X. Ocampo