About

Tabitha Bonilla is an Associate Professor in the Human Development and Social Policy area at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on political behavior and communication, examining how elite communication influences voter opinions of candidates and political policies. Her work specifically investigates how messaging can polarize attitudes or bridge attitudinal divides, with substantive topics in American politics such as gun control, human trafficking, and immigration. She employs a range of quantitative methods, including experiments and text analysis, to explore these issues. Currently, she is a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She graduated from Stanford University's Political Science Department in 2015 and holds bachelor's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Law
• Gender studies
• Political economy
• Pedagogy
• Mathematics education
• Public administration

Selected publications

• Examining Religious and Racial Identity for Black Christians and Muslims in the United States

  The Journal of Race Ethnicity and Politics · 2026-04-17

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The symbiotic relationships between Black politics and religious institutions have often been understood through the lens of the Civil Rights Era and the political significance of the Black Church. Today, religious organizations remain an important pillar of Black political organizing, with particular focus on Black Protestant Churches. Given the increasing Black Muslim population, we examine the relationship between Black religious socialization and political attitudes. We view these identities intersectionally and investigate how religion may produce within-group differences with respect to both religious and racial identity development, which in turn produces some variation in political attitudes. Using the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-election Survey (CMPS) and the 2020 PEW Survey of Black Faith, we demonstrate that perceptions of Black collective identity and religious identity differ for Black Christians and Black Muslims. Importantly, linked fate and identity importance differently predict political attitudes even if the political attitudes fundamentally remain similar.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• COVID-19 Social Change Survey

  Arch · 2026-01-01

  datasetOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Where to place sensitive questions? Experiments on survey response order and measures of discriminatory attitudes

  Political Science Research and Methods · 2025-06-18 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract In survey experiments, should all covariates be administered before the experimental treatment? Some scholars argue that post-treatment items should never be used as covariates because the treatment could bias the measurement of those items and disrupt experimental randomization. Other scholars argue certain items—specifically sensitive questions measuring prejudice—should not be administered pre-treatment. They argue if asked pre-treatment, these items may prime respondents in ways that will influence how they engage with the experiment treatment, thereby affecting the overall outcome of the experiment. Using evidence from four studies (two original collections) that vary the placement of sensitive items—pre-treatment, post-treatment, or in a separate wave—we find little evidence that the placement of sensitive items influences the measurement of those items, the experimental outcomes, nor heterogeneously affects the outcome conditional on the treatment. However, we find the placement of sensitive items inconsistently affects the experimental outcome by interacting with both the measurement of the items and the experimental treatment condition. Overall, we find these measures to be robust to where they are administered. It may be best to place items pre-treatment to preserve randomization. If researchers have reason to include sensitive moderators post-treatment, they should transparently discuss this choice and the anticipated trade-offs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Do Racial Justice Frames Increase Support Among Democratic Constituencies? Evidence from Two Survey Experiments during the 2020 Georgia Senate Runoffs

  The Journal of Race Ethnicity and Politics · 2025-12-11

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Do appeals to Black voters necessarily detract white voters from supporting the left? Extant studies have yielded mixed answers to this question by examining voter turnout data. We use two survey experiments to test how framing politicians as either supportive of or hostile to the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) and #SayHerName (SHN) movements affected the willingness of voters to support them during the 2020 Senate runoff elections in Georgia. We find that Democratic-leaning respondents in both a national sample of Black respondents and a sample of White respondents in Georgia were more likely to support politicians whom we framed as supportive of the BLM and SHN movements. These findings illustrate the potential potency of messaging strategies grounded in racial justice themes for mobilizing Democratic-leaning voters in American elections.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Influence of Partisanship on Assessments of Promise Fulfillment and Accountability

  American Political Science Review · 2024-08-05 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  I draw together theories of partisan polarization and motivated reasoning, which suggest that partisanship shapes information processing, and theories of accountability, which argue voters hold elected officials accountable through promise fulfillment. Here, I ask how partisanship influences voter understanding of promise fulfillment and accountability and if voters assess promises through a partisan lens. Two original survey experiments test how respondents react to promise fulfillment on the issues of immigration and human trafficking. I demonstrate that co-partisans differentiate between kept and broken promises, but out-partisans do not. Despite partisan differences, respondents evaluate promise-keeping when asked about accountability but not when asked about approval. Thus, even when voters recognize broken promises, accountability is influenced by partisanship. Immigration, a more polarized issue, is more likely to prime a partisan response than human trafficking, a less polarized issue. Future work must account for partisanship in accountability and what this means for our understanding of fundamental democratic principles.

  PublisherDOI

• Predicting Biased Voting Behavior with Implicit Attitude Measures: Results from a Voting Experiment and the 2008 Presidential Election

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2024-12-21

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Reconceptualizing Parents as Policy Agents Within Special Education

  Educational Researcher · 2024 · 20 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Psychology

  Existing research on the implementation of special education (SE) has consistently documented racial inequities in the law’s implementation. We present a new theoretical framework to guide future research. SE law requires parents to act as initiators, developers, and enforcers in the implementation of SE policy. Drawing from law and society research, we demonstrate how the law’s design contributes to structural inequalities because it conscripts parents to work as policy agents. Parents may not be adequately resourced for their role, which contributes to inequalities and makes structural changes difficult. We argue that this framework may shift approaches to research within and beyond SE, helping to reorient approaches to understanding parents’ roles and the reproduction of inequities within educational policy implementation.

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: Religion or Race? Using Intersectionality to Examine the Role of Muslim Identity and Evaluations on Belonging in the United States

  Harvard Dataverse · 2023-11-17

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  Replication data and code for "Religion or Race? Using Intersectionality to Examine the Role of Muslim Identity and Evaluations on Belonging in the United States." All variables used in main text and supplemental materials included.

  PublisherDOI

• Religion or Race? Using Intersectionality to Examine the Role of Muslim Identity and Evaluations on Belonging in the United States

  The Journal of Race Ethnicity and Politics · 2023 · 16 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Gender studies

  Abstract How do White Americans evaluate the politics of belonging in the United States across different ethnoreligious identity categories? This paper examines this question through two competing frameworks. On the one hand, given the salience of anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States, we consider whether White Americans penalize Muslim immigrants to the United States regardless of their ethnoracial background. On the other hand, Muslim identity is often conflated by the general public with Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) ethnoracial identity. We argue MENA-Muslim identity should be understood through the lens of intersectionality. In this case, White Americans may penalize MENA-Muslims immigrants to the United States more than Muslims from other ethnoracial groups. We test these two frameworks through a conjoint experimental design wherein respondents are asked to evaluate immigrants and indicate to whom the United States should give a green card—signaling legal belonging—and how likely the immigrant is to assimilate into America—signaling cultural belonging. Although White Americans believe White Muslims may assimilate better to the United States relative to MENA-Muslims, race does not moderate how White Americans evaluate who should be allowed to belong in the United States.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Promises as Signals of Commitment

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2022-01-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Alvin Tillery

  65 shared

• Cecilia Hyunjung Mo

  University of California, Berkeley

  3 shared

• Nazita Lajevardi

  Michigan State University

  2 shared

• Alexandra Filindra

  2 shared

• Amanda Sahar d’Urso

  Dartmouth College

  2 shared

• Maya Novak-Herzog

  1 shared

• Jennifer R. Cowhy

  University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

  1 shared

• Kimberly Saks McManaway

  University of Michigan–Flint

  1 shared

Education

• MA, PhD, Political Science

  Stanford University

  2015

• BS, Biology, Political Science

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  2007