The Spirit are a gang of weirdos who love each other and will crush you at soccer, love em

As Trump urges MAGA governors to redraw maps for partisan gain, Virginia took action—passing a temporary measure to help level the playing field this fall. We are proud to lead the research and messaging behind this win to protect democracy. www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet. Thanks for showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.

Our paper, “The Politics of Black Classification: Sociopolitical Cues and Racial Perception” (w/ Lauren Davenport & @hrendleman.bsky.social), has been conditionally accepted at Perspectives on Politics! Sharing abstract below. Long time coming, but we are really proud of this paper. More soon!

The Blackness scale might be one of my favorite parts of the paper. People often talk about identity as continuous (“She’s Black, but she ain’t Black Black”), so we developed a way to capture that perception. We then estimate how much different traits predict those ratings.

Carleton is a wonderful school and community and Northfield a special place

Me: Higher ed is in terrible shape Fact check:

BREAKING GOOD NEWS: There is a house at @carleton.edu where you can bake cookies at basically any time. I spent 12 straight hours in the kitchen and came back for breakfast the next morning: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/d...

Been working on this. As someone who has helped organizer their fare share of protests I won't pretend as if the results don't disappoint but the data is the data. That said, I do believe that protests have a lot of impacts that are hard to measure...

We also asked respondents how many dinosaurs they could name off the top of their head — and then promptly asked them to do name 'em. 84% named fewer dinosaurs than they said they could just seconds before. Only 2% named more. (Admittedly, some respondents may have tried harder than others.)

Reminder that the Biden admin was bringing us a free online filing program, but then Trump/Musk killed it before it had a chance to be expanded to everyone:

Faith of Beasts. Officially out tomorrow, though a bunch of stores have let it slip out early. Just a reminder…

This is tomorrow! It will be fun! At least one of the previous statements is objectively true!

This is partly why compellence (getting a country to do something it doesn't want to do, or undo what it has already done) is so hard: you need to be able to provide *assurance* that you will accept their actions and refrain from further punishment, etc. See @reidpauly.bsky.social's book!

The only consistent throughline of this administration’s foreign policy is a absolute refusal to even once look down the game tree

anyway www.brookings.edu/articles/mak...

I think I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/on-the-mat...

NARRATOR: WE DID NOT IN FACT GET IT TOGETHER IN TIME

Check out @laginagause.bsky.social, Devin Wright, and Chris Stout study on how #HBCUs improve descriptive representation for Black people in “The Link Between Educational Socialization, Descriptive Representation, and Substantive Representation,”  buff.ly/VrSPY59  #BHM #polisky

Political psych colleagues: The APSA Political Psych Pre-conference is back this year with a new and exciting format. Please consider presenting your work and registering. More info here: apsa-polpsych-preconf.org

ITS GREAT. TO BE. A MICHIGAN WOOOOOLLLLLVERINE ITS GREAT….

It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine

Isaac Chotiner: You say the two cats who live in your house are "Jerks" and you don't care for them Me: Absolutely. They are the burdens of my life Chotiner: It seems you spent an hour searching for special food for them and paid more for it than you do even for your own food. Me: That's--Hold on,

Also true of research in general, where serendipity is often the source of discovery

“The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing.” Good essay from a field far beyond me. I think the challenge travels, though. Finding ways to use AI tools that help us engage with data/content more, instead of less, is critical.

This is so, so well-articulated.

Survey researchers of blue sky! Behold: the cursed survey!

Congrats to Katie Drapcho on being named to AAPC’s 40 Under 40 🎉 Katie has shaped winning messaging in marquee races like Gov Spanberger’s big win last November and is working on many more this fall including Gov Hochul and others — her work reflects the rigor that define the best in our field.

We also brought home two Pollie Awards for excellence in polling: 🏆 Best in Polling for Regional Campaign (Pennsylvanians for Judicial Fairness) 🏆 Best in Polling for Ballot Initiative (Save Maine Absentee Voting) Grateful to our clients and partners. These wins are shared.

This year’s AAPC Pollie Awards marked a major moment for GSG and our partners! GSG Partner Angie Kuefler was named Pollster of the Year—one of the top honors in our industry. GSG Vice President Katie Drapcho was named to AAPC’s 40 Under 40, recognizing her leadership across high-profile races.

If any of you fine folks in DC are looking for something to do tonight, my partner’s band is playing at The Artemis in Columbia Heights. Come check out some local music and hang out.

Interesting new bot-detection strategy in online samples: academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-...

This, but for everything.

I am predisposed to be skeptical of "pollz: r they broken??" pieces (regardless of conclusion), but this is a really thoughtful essay about some of the current trends we're seeing

Very good piece on the challenges in polling. “The polls-are-broken-because-AI narrative doesn’t really hold for outfits like Marist or Pew or the better state-level operations. When those polls miss, it’s usually the old, hard problem: guessing who’s actually going to show up and vote.“

More Cantore gold in the presser:

Racing Louisville FC: 2 (0.86 xG) vs Washington Spirit: 2 (1.74 xG) #LOUvWAS | #RacingLou | #ThatsTheSpirit | #NWSL | 🤖⚽

The thrilling conclusion is here: daniellekurtzleben.substack.com/p/how-i-got-...

Other exciting wins by GSG clients include: State Rep. Margaret Croke is the projected winner of the Democratic primary for Comptroller. Comm. Donna Miller won her Democratic primary for Congress in IL-02. Liz Granato won her Democratic primary for Cook County Commissioner in District 12.

Big night for our clients in Illinois! @ltgovstratton.illinois.gov won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate with support from Illinois Future PAC, advancing a historic candidacy. Congrats to Gov. @jbpritzker.bsky.social, who secured the Democratic nomination for governor for the third time.

New short paper w @jkalla.bsky.social ! Candidates gain from moderation, but less than many theories expect. Many conclude voters must not care about issues. This is wrong. Small *average* effects mask large effects on specific issues & are consistent with widespread issue-based voting 🧵

Featuring new paper by @dbroockman.bsky.social and @jkalla.bsky.social osf.io/preprints/so... Moving toward the middle has small effects on vote choice but they are larger when the position in question is more popular

👇🎯 You know, the ones that Democrats passed, & literally <halved> child poverty, before everyone lost their stuff about temporary single digit inflation, memory-holed who (the GOP) was solely responsible for blocking their extension, & started pretending Barack Obama was more liberal than Joe Biden.

Another entry for "charts that do not require annotation or in-depth analysis to indicate when the thing happened" www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/p...

The final previews of 2026 @jasondcsoccer.bsky.social in his ASA debut gives you a 2000 word deep dive on the spirit in 2026 @ajsportstat.bsky.social tells us how a team who has won 2 championships in 3 years should actually be better www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2026/3/...

Side note. The figures in here warm my heart. Please please please make all your figures stand-alone interpretable (i.e. notes below figures should be packed with info).

They’re doing a lot of things besides protecting and serving www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/35o94...

Excited to share that Cindy Kam’s and my article is published online! We examine item refusal pre- and post-Dobbs and find a significant increase in women’s refusal to disclose their pregnancy status after the decision, with concerning implications for research, policy, and women’s health.

also: polls are ultimately just a way to talk to a bunch of other people at scale, and people are fascinating