Nominating credible Black candidates can help parties appealto Black voters

With demographic change continuing in America, both the Republican and Democratic Parties have embarked on strategies to diversify their pool of candidates in order to attract a greater share of the minority vote. Using data from Congressional elections, Christopher Stout looks at the success of this strategy. He finds that blacks in districts with Democratic candidates are more likely to identify with the Democratic Party whether their candidates succeed or fail, but only identify with the Republican Party if the candidate is successful. He writes that while blacks respond positively