The results are compelling. White consciousness predicts negative affect toward Obama, endorsement that Republicans better represent whites compared to Democrats, and positive affect toward the Tea Party movement, even after controlling for racial resentment. 10 The results of the two models in which support for Social Security and welfare were regressed on white consciousness provide further evidence that this construct is also distinct from racial animus. As expected, racial resentment is strongly related to opposition to welfare, but white consciousness is not (Gilens 1999)
Previous scholarship has largely dismissed the notion that whites possess a racial identity, let alone a racial consciousness. Growing evidence, however, suggests that in the contemporary political environment, whites are viewing themselves as a distinct and aggrieved political group. The proposed items take an important step toward validly capturing these sentiments, which may have enormous consequences for U.S. electoral politics in the coming years. By simply focusing on racial out-group animus among whites, we are potentially missing an important and essential part of the puzzle that racial in-group attitudes inform political preferences among white Americans as well, and they do so in distinct and consequential ways