Disability and candidate recruitment in congressional elections

Americans with disabilities make up approximately 20-25 percent of the population, but their (under)representation in Congress has received relatively little attention in the literature.1 In this paper, I examine Americans' views toward congressional candidates with disabilities using original data from two nationally representative surveys I conducted using Prolific and one shorter, non-representative survey. I focus on views toward candidate recruitment, a crucial process in determining which candidates a party nominates for Congress. Using original data from the first survey, I find that Democrats/liberals, those who have a disability, and senior citizens (age 65+) are particularly enthusiastic about recruiting more candidates with disabilities to run for Congress. Second, using data from a list experiment in a second survey, I am able to reduce the impact of social desirability bias on responses. The results from this list experiment still show support for increased candidate recruitment for candidates with disabilities, especially among the most progressive respondents. In total, my results demonstrate that particularly among progressives, demand exists for recruiting more candidates with disabilities.