Voting for Disabled Candidates

Voters frequently rely on stereotypes about candidates’ identities when evaluating and choosing between them. Having a visible disability clearly makes a candidate stand out in a context where disabled politicians remain few and far between. Do voters discriminate in favour of or against disabled candidates at the ballot box? This study examines whether, after accounting for voters’ assumptions that disabled candidates are more left-wing, candidate disability affects candidate support. It draws on data from two survey experiments in the United States and the United Kingdom (N=6,000), one with and one without party labels. The results show that while being disabled in and of itself has little impact on candidate support overall, left-wing voters favour disabled candidates of parties on the left over their non-disabled peers. The study provides important insights not only for scholars of electoral behaviour but also disabled (prospective) politicians and gatekeepers such as party selectorates.