You can download below a copy of my most recent CV:

Here is a brief selection of recent research papers I have worked on. About one third of the scholarship I produce through the REPS Lab consists of active collaborations with talented undergraduate students at UCLA, many of them in political science, psychology, or other analog disciplines. The papers below include some of these collaborations.

“All Aboard? Solidarity Between People of Color and the Validated Votes of Black, Latino, and Asian Adults.” Under review (with Andrew M. Engelhardt, Kasheena G. Rogbeer, and Emily Ortiz)

Accumulating research establishes that solidarity between people of color (PoC) unifies the political opinions of Black, Asian, Latino, and other racially stigmatized adults. Does solidarity also galvanize their political actions? By synthesizing research on PoC solidarity with insights about attitudes and behavior, we yield a set of pre-registered hypotheses that we evaluate by 1) testing whether solidarity galvanizes people of color to cast presidential ballots; and 2) pinpointing which PoC are more likely to engage in solidarity-based voting. Leveraging survey experimental data (N = 2,550) gathered three weeks before 2024’s presidential election, we find that inducing a sense of shared discrimination activated PoC solidarity, with this camaraderie boosting validated turnout among Black, Asian, and Latino adults. We corroborate this pattern in a 3-wave panel of these populations (N=3,627), showing that solidarity measured at Wave 1 (pre-election) also reliably increased validated turnout independently of key covariates and time-invariant confounding. Finally, parting with previous work, we establish that solidarity significantly mobilized PoC who are Democrats, but demobilized PoC who are Republicans, implying these turnout gains benefit Democratic candidates. We discuss our results’ implications for political scientists and practitioners.

Are People of Color Anti-White? Evidence from a Panel Study of 3,536 Black, Latino, and Asian American Adults Under review (with Sydney Tran, UCLA Doctoral Student in Psychology)

Demographic shifts are remaking America’s racial hierarchy, with stigmatized outgroups sharing an identity as people of color (PoC) and White Americans supporting backlashes against teeming racial diversity. Have PoC developed anti-White attitudes in return? We analyze a three-wave survey of Black, Latino, and Asian American adults (N=3,546) straddling the 2024 presidential campaign. Drawing on social identity and social dominance theories, our pre-registered analyses reveal that stronger PoC identity is positively, but weakly, correlated with anti-White sentiment per wave (r_avg. = .081). Moreover, within-person increases in anti-White sentiment modestly bump up PoC identity strength over time (d~.10), but not vice versa, which clarifies a causal direction between these constructs. Finally, compared to anti-White sentiment, belief in structural racism is a substantially stronger predictor of PoC identity. The impact of anti-White attitude on PoC ID is unmoderated by either belief in structural racism or preferences for inter-group equality.

Which Way(s) Does It Flow? Reassessing Solidarity’s Influence on Policy Support With Panel Data on 3,398 Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial Adults in the U.S. (with Rodolfo Solís, Seth K. Goldman, Yuen J. Huo, Tatishe Nteta, and Linda R. Tropp)

Growing evidence indicates solidarity between people of color (PoC) is reliably associated with greater support for policies involving Black (affirmative action), Latino (undocumented immigration), and Asian (high-skilled immigration) people. Yet doubts remain about this pattern’s direction due to overreliance on cross-sectional data. Leveraging a three-wave panel of U.S. Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial adults (2023 – 2024), we find that present changes in solidarity increase later support for affirmative action and undocumented immigration, but not high-skilled immigration. We find no evidence that policy support drives PoC solidarity in return. Post-hoc analyses suggest the unexpected pattern for high-skilled immigration is partly affected by weaker news coverage of this issue across our panel. We discuss implications for ongoing research on U.S. inter-minority politics.

In Their Own Words: An In-Depth Look at Ideological Sorting, Partisan Polarization, and Latino Republicans Under review (with Rodolfo Solís, UCLA Doctoral Candidate in Political Science)

*For a copy of this paper, please contact the lead author, Rodolfo, at rsolis1220@g.ucla.edu

Recent elections have witnessed over one-third of Latino voters support nativist Republican, Donald J. Trump, which complicates conventional understandings of Latino partisanship. Several scholars and political observers attribute this support to weakened racial identity, limited ties to immigration, or conservative values. Yet these explanations overlook the profound influence that greater ideological sorting and political polarization at the mass level might have on some Latinos’ intense identification as Republicans in this era. To probe and refine this ideological sorting explanation, we draw on a purposive sample of seventy-five (N=75) in-depth interviews with Latino Republicans from five (5) South Texas counties that heavily voted for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Our analyses of these conversations highlight the strong viability of an ideological sorting explanation for Latino Republican partisanship and support for nativist candidates, while uncovering scattered evidence for the role of weakened racial identity, limited ties to immigration, and conservative values. Specifically, our conversations with these individuals reveal that as Republicans continue to mobilize around culture war issues—e.g., immigration, immigration, and LGBTQ rights—many of these individuals find greater alignment between their socially conservative values and the current political agenda pursued by the Republican party. Moreover, our data suggest that partisan polarization—where various social identities (e.g., religion, class, nation) are becoming sharply associated with each party—further contributes to some Latinos’ embrace of the Republican Party. We discuss how our results can help reinvigorate conceptual, theoretical, and empirical understandings of U.S. Latino politics going forward.

“Reformulating and Reassessing Solidarity’s Downstream Effects: New Panel Evidence on People of Color During the 2024 Presidential Campaign.” Under review (with Seth K. Goldman, Yuen J. Huo, Tatishe Nteta, and Linda R. Tropp)

Mounting evidence shows that shared identity between people of color (PoC) heightens inter-minority solidarity, which then yields downstream support for pro-PoC policies. Previous experiments detect this mediation pattern in cross-sectional samples, complicating inferences about solidarity’s effects, especially in real-life politics. We reformulate solidarity as a developmental process and reassess its influence longitudinally. Leveraging a unique three-wave panel of Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial adults during the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign (N = 3,402), we find that across groups, shared PoC identity (Wave 1) significantly increased inter-minority solidarity (Wave 2), which then boosted support for pro-Black and pro-Latino policies—but not pro-Asian policy (Wave 3). This pathway is robust to major confounding threats. We also unearth new evidence of bi-directional effects, where solidarity (Wave 2) mediates the influence of prior support for pro-PoC policies (Wave 1) on future levels of PoC identity (Wave 3), thus further clarifying solidarity’s dynamic nature.  

“Condoning Their Own Oppression? Authoritarianism, Social Dominance, and System Justification Among People of Color Before and After 2024’s Election” Under review (with Ramona Alhambra, Andrew Engelhardt, and Emily Ortiz)

Non-trivial shares of people of color (PoC) have long identified as Republicans. Yet following Donald Trump’s 2024 re-election, the GOP’s ideological agenda began to plainly hurt PoC. Is this false consciousness, where Republican PoC condone their own oppression? Or did they report intolerant attitudes to cheer on their party during a contentious campaign? Our brief note tests two claims. First, consistent with polarization literature, we contend that partisanship primed three postures toward intolerance among Republican PoC during the 2024 campaign: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and system justification. Second, aligning with work on expressive survey responses, we argue these postures faded significantly once Trump’s agenda produced visibly harmful consequences for PoC (e.g., deportation raids; weakened civil rights). Leveraging a 3-wave panel of Black, Latino, and Asian adults (N=3,626), our pre-registered analyses indicate Republican partisanship in June 2024 heightened authoritarianism, social dominance, and system justification among Black, Latino, and Asian adults in December 2024. These patterns were fleeting, with partisanship’s impact on these postures withering by July 2025. We find scattered evidence that these postures intensified PoC’s Republican partisanship during this period, implying our results reflect campaign effects rather than a firm commitment among Republican PoC to bolster their own oppression.