RACE AND VOTING - CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN THE DISTRICT-OF-COLUMBIA

Racially patterned voting can be spurious (based on racially neutral c riteria), racist (based solely on race), or racial (based on political , tactical, symbolic, or value-based deliberations in which race is an important consideration). In this article the author assesses the rel ationship between race and voting in the 140 precincts of the District of Columbia, focusing on competitive elections between 1978 and 1990. Race is an extremely potent and tenacious factor in structuring elect oral patterns, but this reflects context-specific calculations mediate d by strong group identity and shared assessments of the political env ironment.