Performance and race in evaluating minority mayors

This research compares a performance model to a racial model in explaining approval of a black mayor. The performance model emphasizes citizen evaluations of conditions in the city and the mayor's perceived effectiveness in dealing with urban problems. The racial model stipulates that approval of a black mayor is based primarily on racial identification or racism. A model of mayoral approval is tested with two surveys over different years of citizens in a city that has had 20 years' experience with black mayors. Findings indicate that performance matters when evaluating black mayors, indicating that the national performance models of presidential approval are generalizable to local settings with black executives. Implications for black officeholders are discussed. However, the racial model is alive and well, as indicated by its impact on approval and the finding that, in this context, performance matters more to white voters than to black voters. A final, highly tentative conclusion is offered that context conditions the relative power of these models. The performance model may explain more variation in approval of the black mayor than the racial model in a context of rapidly changing city conditions that focuses citizen attention on performance, but during a period of relative stability the two models are evenly matched.