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Degree Name

MA (Master of Arts)

Program

Sociology

Date of Award

8-2026

Committee Chair or Co-Chairs

Joseph O. Baker

Committee Members

Kelly N. Foster, Candace Bright Hall-Wurst

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.

Document Type

Thesis - restricted

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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