Growth in urban counties is slowing with immigration declines; the Census also revised prior estimates, which had undercounted new destinations in favor of traditional inmigration hubs jedkolko.substack.com/p/with-less-...

Democratic Party identification advantages in the American public have steadily declined over two decades, especially among those without degrees yougov.com/en-us/articl...

V-Dem 2026 Democracy Report (US decline p33-39): www.v-dem.net/publications... Datasets & codebook: www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-d... Main declines in legislative constraints, civil rights, & freedom of expression. Here is codex on indicator subjectivity & sensitivity to GOP congress control:

For our school district "spring" break next week, I invited myself to give talks at Miami Monday and Berkeley Friday (my first return since pre-COVID) next week on the new book project, Policymaking for Realists. If you are at either place, I hope you can join me. I hope you can join me.

What political theorists lined up behind Trumpism and why? Laura Field tracks the strands of intellectual support, finding opportunistic turns, conflicting ideas, & real impact New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript on Furious Minds: www.niskanencenter.org/the-intellec...

Trump's brand has crystallized existing party alignments & nationalized electoral competition, reducing local distinctiveness & constraining realignment. The Trump era is a period of consolidation, not partisan transformation onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Ideologically rating social science academic article abstracts (using a fixed contemporary ideological scale) finds that 90% lean left & all disciplines showed leftward movement from 1990-2024, especially on cultural issues. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Ideologically rating social science academic article abstracts (using a fixed contemporary ideological scale) finds that 90% lean left & all disciplines showed leftward movement from 1990-2024, especially on cultural issues. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Candidates get more support by moving to the middle of voters' ideological spectrum, but that may not mean the middle among elites. Democrats benefit by moderating most where the public is more conservative, Republicans where the public is more liberal osf.io/preprints/so...

Our daughter, a high school freshman, had her newspaper story on a FOIA request by our congressman (over their ICE walkout), published in a national "best of" site: bestofsno.com/85605/featur... She's also June George (Regina's mom) in the school production of Mean Girls this weekend

Many thanks to @mattgrossmann.bsky.social for having me on the @niskanencenter.bsky.social #ScienceofPolitics podcast to talk '26 midterms for the U.S. Senate & House! TLDR; battleground looks expanded for Senate Democrats compared to year ago thanks to candidate recruitment efforts. Take a listen!

in most cases, female state legislators have lower state legislative effectiveness than their male counterparts, in contrast to congressional findings onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Predicting Congressional Election Results Presidential approval & ideological direction of public opinion, not economics or party conflict, predict election results. That looks good for Dems New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with Carlos Algara www.niskanencenter.org/what-predict...

I was a guest on The Great Battlefield podcast for a wide-ranging interview, mostly on connections between political science & practical politics: greatbattlefield.com/episode/the-...

The 5th edition of Campaigns & Elections (or 9th if you count the midterm updates) is ready for Fall course adoption & review: wwnorton.com/books/978132...

School board votes are overwhelmingly unanimous & cover humdrum issues. From a high school student's vibecoded open database of nationwide school board votes: school-board-votes.up.railway.app Nice example of now-possible independent research

I accept quick AI timelines but draw the line at predicting end of credit card & housing fees (tech is not the barrier). Working at a university also makes me skeptical about quick realignment of hiring to take advantage of tech efficiency (especially eliminating admin positions)

I (well codex) tried to update the @adambonica.bsky.social spreadsheet of announced DOGE layoffs (showing that they were at liberal agencies) with the actual employment changes at federal agencies. There is still a relationship, though there were also unannounced cuts at conservative agencies.

My new disambiguation page to alleviate Matt Grossman(n) confusion: www.mattg.org/disambiguation

Legislators Are Raising Money Instead of Making Policy By rewarding fundraising, parties miss out on diverse leaders & effective legislators. But states that reform make more policy. New #ScienceOfPolitics with Michael Kistner on Paying for the Party www.niskanencenter.org/legislators-...

AI's accuracy in censorship decreases with increasing repression, especially during times of political crisis onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Despite cutting lots of federal staff, Trump did not get the spending cuts he requested from Congress: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...

Research Obsession Day 9: In honor of president's day, thermostatic public opinion -- a very important topic! w/ recent research by @mattgrossmann.bsky.social & @cbwlezien.bsky.social on its impact on elections www.matthewg.org/thermostatic...

Democrats use AI more than Republicans, but it is due to education, industry, and occupation www.nber.org/papers/w34813

Empirical evidence on concentration, markups, and mergers does not show a widespread decline in US competition www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Oklahoma governor is eliminating new tenure at public universities & colleges other than Oklahoma & OK State: www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... These universities will operate with existing tenured faculty but current assistants will be converted to fixed-term; regents still have to accept

Lost in the ICE battles is that the parties agreed on government funding levels & provisions. Dems did not win any real constraints on recessions or DOGE-style actions and implicitly OKd some admin restructuring. But Reps did not win any real $ shifts to match Trump budget.

Re-assessing my Jan. 2025 pod with @mattgrossmann.bsky.social ✔️ Jan 6 pardons ✔️ Subdued opposition but eventual rally ✔️ Wield DOJ vs. enemies ✔️ Chilling effects of DOJ abuse ✔️ High-profile firings ✔️ Mass deportation ✔️ Challenge elections in future ❌ didn't foresee DOGE ❌ didn't foresee ICE/CBP $$$

Need update on spending power moving from Congress to President. Personnel reductions, partly through incentives, are large & presidentialized. But still spent more $ last year & Congress has reversed most planned $ cuts (including NIH & Ed). Agencies lose capacity but not funds

Republican governors show higher levels of populist rhetoric than Democrats, but this difference predates Trump’s presidency and shows no evidence of intensifying following his first election. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The budget deal extends international aid, not agreeing with the presidents' cuts but spending less than last year: healthpolicy-watch.news/9-42-billion... Can someone explain whether they implicitly approved the move of USAID activities to State, disapproved it, or remained silent?

far-right parties benefit electorally when the current government is on the left because there is an ideological shift to the right among the electorate when left-wing parties govern www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Reframing policy arguments with opponents' moral foundations did not change policy opinions across 5 issue areas: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Partisan animosity increases protest participation at the individual and geographic levels academic.oup.com/sf/article-a...

Can AI 'vibe research' replace social science? Experiments in research design, planning, data collection, analysis, & writing with Claude Code New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with Andy Hall www.niskanencenter.org/can-ai-vibe-...

Can AI 'vibe research' replace social science? Experiments in research design, planning, data collection, analysis, & writing with Claude Code New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with Andy Hall www.niskanencenter.org/can-ai-vibe-...

immigration executive actions have increased over time, primarily through proclamations where presidents publicize their immigration policy agendas journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Members of Congress who specialize, dedicating half of their attention to one issue area, have greater legislative effectiveness www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Because thermostatic reaction is usually parallel across parties, out-parties tend to move further out (especially on the issues where the in-party is overshooting) & still succeed electorally. But that raises ambitions for overshooting again when they take power.

Transferring to a better college does not necessarily work out better for the students: edworkingpapers.com/sites/defaul...

The connection between public opinion & policy adoption across 40 countries is stronger for citizens active in multiple types of nonelectoral political activity, though voters are only slightly better represented than non-voters link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I comment on the recent thermostatic politics of immigration: www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics...

Public opinion u-turns are common. The public moves against the direction of policy & the party of the president, especially in midterms. The swing voters from the last election often move back because they are the people will the least strong partisan attachments.

Public opinion u-turns are common. The public moves against the direction of policy & the party of the president, especially in midterms. The swing voters from the last election often move back because they are the people will the least strong partisan attachments.

donors in both parties hold more ideologically extreme positions on domestic policy than even their richest co-partisans or public co-partisans; on international issues, Democratic donors are more pro-internationalist than their richest co-partisans www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Political science journal articles increasingly reference journal articles more than books, across subfields, as total citations increase www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Across Mexican Americans & Cuban Americans, social traditionalism was the most consistent predictor of voting for Trump over Harris spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

When parents' political attitudes are ideologically constrained, their kids are more likely to adopt similar political views. The increase in ideological constraint among some segments increased their success at passing along their political views link.springer.com/article/10.1...

When surveys allow Americans to express their policy preferences on a continuum, most are moderate across a wide range of issues. Democrats & Republics show overlap on every issue, with modest average disagreement; positions across issues are constrained link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Congress’s policy outcomes still typically command broad support. It enacts similar legislation by sheer volume compared to the 1980s & 1990s & normally does so in ways that large majorities and both parties support. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...