Ethnic Cleavages and Vote Choice in Trinidad and Tobago

Abstract Trinidad and Tobago is mostly split between two main ethnic groups of African and Indian origins, yet there is little empirical research on the importance of these social cleavages in voting behaviour in the country. One branch of scholarly work on ethnic voting suggests that individuals use social identities as heuristics to evaluate candidates. However, another line of research has found that the role of ethnicity in elections is declining in specific contexts. This manuscript explores the importance of ethnic cleavages in voting patterns in Trinidad and Tobago. We use the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) surveys and conduct a series of probit models to test which factors influence voting the most in the twin-islands. We find that ethnicity is the main factor associated with voters’ choice, but other factors that are associated with voting decisions, such as voters’ political ideology, education, and place of residence. These findings inform the ongoing debate on the importance of ethnicity in voting behaviour.