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OPINION TODAY featured podcast — The money chase: In congressional primaries and general elections, the top fundraiser wins 92% of the time. @daniellethomsen.bsky.social finds that candidates are raising money earlier and in larger amounts than ever. opiniontoday.substack.com/i/177548584/...

Big thanks to @mattgrossmann.bsky.social for the invitation to discuss my new book!

New editorial from me and @keithschnak.bsky.social. “Why Washington University must not sign Trump's 'compact'”

Great turnout on pacific coast highway. Deeply moved by support for democracy, science, and the values that set America apart.

I just finished reading this book. It is terrific.

As fundraising heats up this cycle, it's a good time to announce the publication of my new book, The Money Signal! The main argument is that money matters because it is a widely used indicator of viability and strength in American politics. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

#OpenAccess from Augusts 2025 - Early Money and Strategic Candidate Exit - cup.org/3HnnDBk "exit of experienced candidates has important implications for the choices that voters have" - @daniellethomsen.bsky.social#OpenAccess

As fundraising heats up this cycle, it's a good time to announce the publication of my new book, The Money Signal! The main argument is that money matters because it is a widely used indicator of viability and strength in American politics. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

CHICAGO — Outside an elementary school during dismissal… horrifying. What have we become?

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

New article: "Fundamentals of Solidarity: Race-Based Caucus Organizing in Houston" is live at Urban Affairs Review. I'm grateful to the organizers who let me into their world and work so we could produce this piece. Check it out 👇

What do you have to do to a person to make them behave like this? What brings a person to a point in their life where they’re gleefully inflicting lawless, unjust violence like this?

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “By many measures, it’s been the most successful season in league history” for the WNBA, David Berri, a sports economist, writes. “But the players aren’t fully sharing in that success.”

Excellent overview

Political campaigns now burn 30¢ of every dollar raised just fundraising for more dollars (up from 9¢ in 2004). In 2024, $3 Billion was spent on fundraising. In 2026, fundraising costs are on track to exceed advertising spending for the first time.

"When nearly one-third of all political contributions get recycled back into asking for more contributions, we've created a system that exists primarily to perpetuate itself while enriching fundraising consultants." data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-fundra...

“It will take decades to recover from this, if we ever do.” America’s cancer research system, which has helped save millions of lives and is in one of its most productive moments, is under threat by the Trump administration.

Danielle Thomsen's (@daniellethomsen.bsky.social) The Money Signal will change how you think about the function of money in US elections. A must-read! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

APSA folks: Free on Saturday, 9/13 at 10 am? Come to an Author Meets Critics panel for my new book, The Money Signal! Thanks to an amazing group of scholars: Larry Bartels, Brandice Canes-Wrone, @carnes.bsky.social, @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social, and Frances Lee. @uchicagopress.bsky.social

Have you ever wanted to hear the stories of pathbreaking LADIES of political science? these new podcasts tell their stories. #GenderSky #Polisky #Behaviorsky #EGEN @egenpolisci.bsky.social

Exactly right. And no incentives for strong GOP challengers to run. Problematic in era of uncompetitive general elections.

If pundits would like to talk about violence, a terrorist recently shot up the CDC and another assassinated Democratic officials in Minnesota but they sort of let both stories disappear Not as threatening as motorbikes in DC I know but maybe we could circle back?

Very bad sign when masked, unidentified agents of the security state are not just grabbing people off the street but openly identifying with the regime's politics

Enjoyed giving a keynote at CogSci 2025! 🧠 🖥️ 🌉@cogscisociety.bsky.social ‬ #CogSci2025 #philsci #philsky #HPS

Thanks for the shoutout, Mirya! Book is hot off the press! Full thread soon.

SNA is amazing. No lines, efficient, small but mighty.

Something I love about running a tiny independent media outlet that's beholden only to our readers: We get to do awesome public service journalism like this. Don't get me wrong—this redistricting war is terrible. But we don't have to worry about clicks or shareholders. We just do work that matters.

DOGE cut less than 5% of claimed savings in contracts www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

Republican open House seats are tracking the massive 2020 and 2018 years so far. Notably all but one of this year's open GOP seats is due to the member running for Senate or governor. 1/2 Data: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

In agency after agency, the U.S. government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of policies. (Published April)

Great thread about a very cool paper about elite behavior that shapes voter choices.

Excited that my paper on early money and dropout decisions is out at @bjpols.bsky.social! A brief thread: Main finding: Experienced candidates who struggle to raise money are more likely to drop out before the primary. Pattern is even more pronounced in the current money-driven era.

@adambonica.bsky.social and I are economists now (economist salary coming soon, I imagine) Ungated until the end of September: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The real scandal here is how deeply embedded Mothership is with the Democratic establishment. It was founded by DCCC alumni and continues to work closely with party leaders. It’s way worse than I thought. And it’s infuriating they continue to allow preying on people to enrich consultants.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand: $678M raised through those spam tactics $282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies. $11M to actual campaigns (1.6%) The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

The most corrupt White House in history. Here is an account of what people are paying, directly to a PAC called MAGA Inc, in order to meet the president, get pardons, change policy www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...

Brilliant keynote by @laurennross.bsky.social at #cogsci2025 on cognitive science and its philosophy. Lauren pointed out the myriad ways in which cogsci and philosophy support and benefit one another, using explanation and causal reasoning as case studies. Thank you for a great talk!! 🙏

Been a busy year in the data mines.📊 Just published my mid-year roundup: 29 data visualizations on the state of US democracy, tracking everything from judicial resistance to billionaire influence to why Dems have a mobilization crisis, not a moderation problem. All charts free to use:

The avg. campaign dollar now comes from a 67-year-old donor—up from 61 in 2016. When political money talks with a 67-year-old voice, it's no surprise our policies look backward, not forward. The good news: early donations to younger candidates can help break this cycle and reshape our future.

Two pertinent graphs from me tonight... First, U.S. support for bombing Iran is very low — much lower than support was at the time for the American military attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, and ISIS. Link: www.gelliottmorris.com/p/polls-amer...

More polling just dropped -- by a pretty huge margin Americans think that having international students at US universities is good for the country, not bad -- 56% to 14% (+42) and for 18-29 YOs, nearly 1/2 say international students are "very good"

A huge majority of Americans say that more people should work in manufacturing - but that they, personally, don't want to.

International students add $44 billion to the US economy, annually. www.aau.edu/newsroom/lea...

Stunning. May was brutal for Trump in federal court: 96% loss rate ⚖️. Even GOP-appointed judges have ruled against the admin 72% of the time. District courts are doing their job defending the Constitution. Soon the Supreme Court may be the only court unwilling to defend the rule of law.

New post from me: a free society should not tolerate routine masking and other attempts to conceal identity by ICE agents raiding worksites, stopping cars and arresting protesters. And it's part of a wider Trump administration strategy of pursuing impunity for rights-violating law enforcers.

NEW: A federal judge raised alarm Friday that the Trump administration appeared to have deported a 2-year-old U.S. citizen to Honduras with "no meaningful process" — even as her father was fighting to keep her in the country. Details w/ @joshgerstein.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

To everyone that said Democrats like Van Hollen were making a political mistake in defending due process, you were wrong, and we shouldn’t even need a poll to tell us that.

The wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador dominated last week’s news headlines. Here's why Democrats should keep talking about immigration: goodauthority.org/news/why-dem...

Good reporting here. Student paper gets what the bigs have missed. White House is actually threatening to defund all of bostons major hospitals www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...