Assistant Professor of Political Science Anna Mikkelborg studies how group identities shape Americans’ relationships with their political representatives. Her research offers insights not only into individual voting behavior, but also into how people respond to both the identities of their own representatives and the growing diversity of government more broadly. 

In March 2025, the significance of Mikkelborg’s research was recognized with a Pipeline Grant from the prestigious Russell Sage Foundation—marking only the second time a CLA faculty member has received this national award. 

RSF’s Pipeline Grants Competition, co-funded by the Economic Mobility and Opportunity program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supports early-career scholars and advances diversity in the social sciences—across race, ethnicity, gender, discipline, institution, and geography. The initiative funds innovative research on economic mobility and opportunity in the U.S., with a focus on structural barriers and how individuals, communities, and institutions understand, navigate, and challenge systemic inequality. 

Mikkelborg will use her funding from the RSF to examine how perceptions of Black government representation influence White voters’ beliefs about government legitimacy. While past research shows that voters generally prefer politicians who resemble them, findings from Mikkelborg’s dissertation reveal that White Democrats increasingly favor politicians of color, whereas White Republicans still tend to support White representatives.  

“I’m especially interested in how members of privileged groups, like white people and men, respond to politicians who are members of historically marginalized groups, like people of color and women,” says Mikkelborg. 

“If liberal white Americans prefer non-white representatives for themselves, do they also prefer a Congress that is more racially diverse? What about more conservative voters? We know that Congress is becoming more diverse, and we also know that Americans’ trust in Congress is near its all-time low — is growing diversity contributing to lower trust, or might it counteract some of the erosion of congressional legitimacy? I decided to apply for an RSF Pipeline Grant to explore these questions,” she continues.  

Mikkelborg applied to multiple funding sources, but the RSF Pipeline Grant stood out—not only for its funding of data collection but also for its mentorship program and end-of-year conference for grantees. “As a first-year assistant professor, these mentorship and networking resources are as precious to me as the funding for my project,” says Mikkelborg. She even benefited from valuable mentorship during the application process itself, as the five reviewers provided thoughtful and constructive feedback on her proposal 

“I am absolutely thrilled that my first solo post-dissertation project has received support from the Russell Sage Foundation. Survey research is expensive — designs must be tested in the field, refined, and tested again, and I’m committed to paying my respondents a living wage — and this support from RSF gives me the resources I need to do this work,” she says.  

Mikkelborg will present results from this research at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association this fall and is optimistic that the findings will yield multiple articles, or perhaps even a book manuscript, in the coming years.