FDU Poll finds Stereotypes About Asian-American Men Hurt Kim
Stereotypes About Asian-American Men Hurt Kim
Kim regarded as less masculine, driving down approval
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, February 7, 2024 – Stereotypes about candidates often drive the assessments of voters, and this year’s Senate race is no exception. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll, Representative Andy Kim, who is of Korean-American descent, is seen by New Jersey residents as being less masculine than other male Democrats in the race, and those perceptions of masculinity drive his approval ratings. Kim is currently the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat currently held by Senator Bob Menendez.
In the poll of New Jersey residents who say that they will vote in November’s Senate election, respondents were asked to rate the candidates for the Democratic nomination on a 1 to 10 scale, running from feminine to masculine. Kim was rated as being significantly less masculine (with a mean score of 6.2) than the other major male candidate in the race, incumbent Senator Bob Menendez (with a mean score of 6.9). Even among Democrats, residents who rate Kim as being lower on masculinity are much less likely to say that they approve of him. These findings are in line with academic research showing that men of East Asian descent are seen as less masculine than members of other racial and ethnic groups.
“Voters associate masculinity with leadership traits,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the director of the poll. “Both male and female candidates have to be seen to have masculine traits to be seen as desirable candidates.”
Of the 45 percent of residents who say that they know who Kim is, 50 percent say that they approve (either “strongly” or “somewhat”) of the job Kim is doing, with only 24 percent disapproving. However, there is a substantial gap between the half of respondents who see Kim as being high on the masculinity scale (7 or above) and the half who rate him as low on it (below 7). Among residents who rate Kim as being high on the masculinity scale, 49 percent say that they strongly approve of him; among those who rate him as being below 7 on the ten-point scale, only 16 percent strongly approve. Similarly, among those who rate Kim as being high on the masculinity scale, only 6 percent disapprove of the job Kim is going. Among those who rate Kim as being lower on masculinity, 51 percent disapprove.
Of course, there are other differences between the groups – Republicans are less likely to rate Kim highly on the masculinity scale, for instance – but these do not account for the gap seen in the figures. Among just Democrats, for instance, perceiving Kim as more masculine leads to higher approval. Sixty-seven percent of Democrats who know who Kim is and rate him at 7 or higher on the masculinity scale strongly approve of the job he’s doing, compared with just 48 percent of Democrats who don’t rate him highly on masculinity.
“Most people no longer regard extreme masculinity as being a good thing, but we still look for masculine displays from our candidates,” said Cassino. “Proving that you have masculine traits becomes an extra hurdle for any candidate from a group that’s not stereotyped as having them already.”
New Jersey residents rated Kim as being significantly less masculine than the other leading male candidate in the race, Menendez. Residents who see Kim as being more or less masculine don’t vary in their views of Menendez, providing additional support to the idea that it is views of masculinity, rather than some other factor, that is driving the observed differences in support for Kim.
In a sample of likely Democratic primary voters taken from the same poll, First Lady Tammy Murphy trails Democratic Congressman Andy Kim by 12 points, with Kim leading 32 to 20, and 31 percent still undecided. Menendez has the support of 9 percent, and 8 percent of Democratic primary voters say that they’ll back labor activist Patricia Campos-Medina.
The FDU Poll is in the top tier of polls nationwide. Poll aggregator Five Thirty-Eight has released its new rankings of polls ranking FDU 31st in the country, out of more than 500.
The rankings look at the error associated with a poll’s predictions and the degree to which the poll makes its methodology transparent. The FDU Poll scored high on both measures, with a pollscore accuracy ranking of -0.6 (lower figures represent less error and bias), and a transparency score of 8/10.
These scores are impressive when compared with other institutions. The overall ranking is better than that of many well-known polling groups like Gallup (35), Pew (38), SurveyMonkey (75) and Rasmussen (89).
The survey was conducted between January 21 and January 28, 2024 out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Most of the sample (777 respondents) were from a random digital dial sample of New Jersey residents; the remainder (238) were an oversample, taken from a list of adult New Jersey residents who have voted in previous New Jersey Democratic primary elections. Voter lists were obtained from Aristotle International of Washington, DC. Weights were used to adjust the effective sample size to the appropriate level (872 respondents) and ensure that the oversample does not impact the overall representativeness of the sample.
201 of the surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews on landlines, 461 on live caller interviews to cell phones, and the remainder (353) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.
The data were weighted to be representative of the population of New Jersey residents, according to 2020 US Census data. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education and race/ethnicity.
SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.4.
All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 872 New Jersey residents is +/-3.3 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-4.6 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.
This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.
The FDU Poll is a member of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative and is devoted to ensuring that our results are presented in such a way that anyone can quickly and easily get all of the information that they may need to evaluate the validity of our surveys. We believe that transparency is the key to building trust in the work of high-quality public opinion research, and necessary to push our industry forward.
872 New Jersey Residents
Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.
Man
49% N = 425
Woman
50% N = 434
Some Other Way
1% N = 7
18-29
16% N = 136
30-44
30% N = 260
45-64
34% N = 294
65+
19% N = 169
White
55% N = 480
Black
12% N = 104
Hispanic/Latino/a
20% N = 171
Asian
8% N = 70
Other/Multi-racial
2% N = 13
No college degree
55% N = 481
College degree or more
44% N = 378
Democrat
39% N=339
Republican
31% N=268
Independent
12% N=105
Other
19% N=162
First off, we’d like to ask you a few questions about the government here in New Jersey.
[Half of Respondents get this item here, half get it after E6] NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Phil Murphy is handling his job as governor?
- Approve
- Disapprove
- Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
- Refused [Vol]
Later this year, there will be a race for the Senate seat currently held by Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. A number of candidates have declared their interest in those seats, or might do so.
For each, we’d like to know if you’ve heard of them or not, and, if you have heard of them, how you’d rate them on different 1 to 10 scales, where you can pick any number between 1 and 10.
E1. Have you heard of [candidate]?
[E2-E4 only if they’ve heard of candidate]
E2. On a 1-10 scale, where 1 is very much dislike, and 10 is very much like, how much do you like [the candidate], or do you not know?
E3. On a scale where 1 is very feminine, and 10 is very masculine, how masculine or feminine do you think [the candidate] is, or do you not know?
E4. On a scale where 1 is very liberal, and 10 is very conservative, how liberal or conservative do you think [the candidate] is?
[Shuffle order of candidates]
- Democratic Congressman Andy Kim
- Democratic Senator Bob Menendez
- Democratic First Lady Tammy Murphy
- Democratic Labor Activist Patricia Campos-Medina
D1. In politics today, do you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or something else?
- Democrat
- Republican
- Independent [ASK D1A]
- Something Else/Other
- DK/Ref [vol]
D1A. [Ask only if D1 is 3] Which way do you lean?
- Democrat
- Republican
- Independent
- Something Else/Other
- DK/Ref [vol]
D1B. In addition, which of the following terms would you use to describe your political views? You can choose as many as you like. [Shuffle Order]
- Liberal
- Moderate
- Conservative
- Socialist
- Progressive
- Libertarian
- America First
- Nationalist
E5. [Only Dems] Later this year, there will be a Democratic primary election for the US Senate seat currently held by Bob Menendez. Who do you think you’ll support in that primary election, if the race were between…
- Democratic Congressman Andy Kim
- Democratic Senator Bob Menendez
- Democratic First Lady Tammy Murphy
- Or would you not vote?
- Don’t Know/Ref [vol]
[Shuffle Order of General Election Match-Up Qs]
E5. [Shuffle Order of Candidates] Suppose that November’s election for Senate were between Andy Kim, the Democrat, and Christine Serrano Glassner, the Republican. Would you vote for the Democrat, Kim, the Republican, Glassner, or would you not vote?
- Democrat Kim
- Republican Glassner
- Would not vote
- Don’t Know/Refused [vol]
E6. [Shuffle Order of Candidates] Suppose that November’s election for Senate were between Tammy Murphy, the Democrat, and Christine Serrano Glassner, the Republican. Would you vote for the Democrat, Murphy, the Republican, Glassner, or would you not vote?
- Democrat Murphy
- Republican Glassner
- Would not vote
- Don’t Know/Refused [vol]
[Half of Respondents get this item here, half get it as the first item] NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Phil Murphy is handling his job as governor?
- Approve
- Disapprove
- Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
- Refused [Vol]
Further Questions Held for Future Release
|
Would you say that you strongly approve of Democratic Congressman Andy Kim, somewhat approve of them, somewhat disapprove of them, strongly disapprove of them, or do you not know enough to have an opinion? |
||||
|
|
All |
Dem |
Indp |
Rep |
|
Strongly Approve |
26% |
48% |
8% |
4% |
|
Somewhat Approve |
24% |
27% |
29% |
13% |
|
Somewhat Disapprove |
7% |
1% |
12% |
15% |
|
Strongly Disapprove |
17% |
2% |
23% |
37% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Not Sure/Refused |
26% |
23% |
28% |
31% |
|
Would you say that you strongly approve of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, somewhat approve of them, somewhat disapprove of them, strongly disapprove of them, or do you not know enough to have an opinion? |
||||
|
|
All |
Dem |
Indp |
Rep |
|
Strongly Approve |
5% |
9% |
2% |
2% |
|
Somewhat Approve |
10% |
14% |
9% |
5% |
|
Somewhat Disapprove |
12% |
17% |
7% |
10% |
|
Strongly Disapprove |
60% |
49% |
66% |
72% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Not Sure/Refused |
13% |
11% |
16% |
11% |
|
Would you say that you strongly approve of Democratic Congressman Andy Kim, somewhat approve of them, somewhat disapprove of them, strongly disapprove of them, or do you not know enough to have an opinion? |
|||
|
|
All |
Low Masc |
High Masc |
|
Strongly Approve |
26% |
16% |
49% |
|
Somewhat Approve |
24% |
27% |
30% |
|
Somewhat Disapprove |
7% |
14% |
2% |
|
Strongly Disapprove |
17% |
37% |
4% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Not Sure/Refused |
26% |
6% |
14% |
|
On a scale where 1 is very feminine, and 10 is very masculine, how masculine or feminine do you think [the candidate] is, or do you not know? |
||
|
|
Kim |
Menendez |
|
Mean Score |
6.3 |
6.9 |
|
% at 10: “Very Masculine” |
21% |
26% |
|
% in 7 through 10 |
51% |
58% |
|
Would you say that you strongly approve of Democratic Congressman Andy Kim, somewhat approve of them, somewhat disapprove of them, strongly disapprove of them, or do you not know enough to have an opinion? |
|||
|
|
All Dem |
Dem – Low Masc |
Dem – High Masc |
|
Strongly Approve |
61% |
48% |
67% |
|
Somewhat Approve |
25% |
33% |
22% |
|
Somewhat Disapprove |
0% |
0% |
0% |
|
Strongly Disapprove |
4% |
10% |
2% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Not Sure/Refused |
9% |
9% |
9% |
|
Would you say that you strongly approve of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, somewhat approve of them, somewhat disapprove of them, strongly disapprove of them, or do you not know enough to have an opinion? |
|||
|
|
All |
(Kim) Low Masc |
(Kim) High Masc |
|
Strongly Approve |
5% |
2% |
13% |
|
Somewhat Approve |
10% |
5% |
10% |
|
Somewhat Disapprove |
12% |
17% |
11% |
|
Strongly Disapprove |
60% |
71% |
61% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Not Sure/Refused |
13% |
4% |
5% |
Dan Cassino
Executive Director, FDU Poll
973.896.7072/ dcassino@fdu.edu