Data center construction is facing much more political opposition. If NIMBYs win, what does that imply for the AI "bubble"? Is it inflated by announcements of financing & builds that won't happen or will slow? Are companies over-announcing, anticipating delays & cancelations?

Startup teams with similar political views form more frequently, controlling for founders' gender, age, location, & industry. Startups with politically heterogeneous founding teams are more likely to shut down sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Partisans differ in economic perceptions based on who is president, even if you pay them to get correct answers: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A tuition-free college program increased a receiving student's voter turnout rate by 4–12 percentage points in 2020, also increasing Biden's margin. RD www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Increasing opioid overdose death rates were associated with an increase in Republican votes. surveys show Independents became more likely to support stricter border security & higher spending on law enforcement as drug death rates increased. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Congressional elections are consistently predicted by generic ballot polls, presidential elections by presidential approval & horse race polls. They incorporate most other information &, beyond that, don't have much influence across each other. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Downballot drag is not strong. voters have a strong capacity to discern differences in quality & ideology across offices & incorporate this information into their vote choice onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Insofar as we might think glue for MAGA is negative views of social groups, there's not much among Republicans here according to the ANES panel. If MAGA took over the GOP and partisans then follow elite views, we'd expect more change in group evals—not much there among white Republicans.

How media incentives stoked the culture war When cable news talks culture, it mobilizes viewers; went it talks econ, they change the channel. Now voters & candidates exposed to cable prioritize culture New #ScienceOfPolitics with Aakash Rao & Shakked Noy www.niskanencenter.org/how-media-in...

After ChatGPT, increase in productivity of male researchers was higher than for female researchers, widening the productivity gap. male researchers use generative AI more & see higher efficiency improvement from its use than female researchers academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

black politicians voted punitively at the height of concern about crime. Federally mandated redistricting suggests that in the early 1990s, black political representation also had a punitive impact at the state level www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@mattgrossmann.bsky.social, Caleb Lucas, and I are thrilled to have an updated version of CongressData (V3). In it, we offer new data, including on the 19th century, data on polarization, among others. See our GitHub: github.com/IPPSR/Congre..., R package, and Shiny: cspp.ippsr.msu.edu/congress/

‼️ New working paper ‼️ We find bipartisan appeals credibly signal policymaking intentions—on an issue-by-issue basis We show how and why bipartisan lawmaking persists amid congressional conflict: progress often comes through issue-specific pathways rather than broad consensus between Ds and Rs 🧵👇

Huge congratulations to our 2025 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles winners - Polarized by Degrees by @mattgrossmann.bsky.social & @davehopkins.bsky.social, Intersectional Advocacy by @mperezbrower.bsky.social, and Recasting the Latin American Right by Andrés Borges, Ryan Lloyd, & Gabriel Vommaro!

Who directs spending: Congress or the president? There's long been a gap between what Congress appropriates & what agencies spend. presidents find ways to not spend money they don't request New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with Kevin Angell www.niskanencenter.org/who-now-dire...

University students who were provided with a free gym card (in a randomized experiment) exercised more and had a significant improvement in academic performance. The treated students were also less likely to drop out of classes www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Google has a new tool combining Google Scholar search with LLM chatbot style questions and summaries: scholar.google.com/scholar_labs...

Progressive households increasingly purchase products marketed with health or environmental claims-such as organic, cage-free, and natural-across ten packaged-goods categories, with the political gap growing from 1 % point in 2004 to 8.3 % points by 2023 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Using open-ended responses to a question about your ideal political party to place voters on an ideological spectrum & how much they think ideologically

Dems gain in generic ballot polls, moving toward large seat gains in historical models Current polls: polls.decisiondeskhq.com/averages/gen... Historical models: centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

My comments on why (some) Democrats gave up in the shutdown fight despite Republican blame in polls: www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

and if you're curious about the book, well, you can buy the book but if you want a bit more info, here's my interview with @mattgrossmann.bsky.social www.niskanencenter.org/the-backlash...

The Backlash Presidency Why Trump followed Obama & got impeached, in historical perspective with comparisons to Nixon after LBJ & Johnson after Lincoln New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with @juliaazari.bsky.social www.niskanencenter.org/the-backlash...

Democrats improved most in elections where turnout dropped the most & in Hispanic areas x.com/theeconomist...

Racial differences in policy responsiveness are small. But policy is more responsive to whites under Republicans control, not explained by class, age, or ideology but partially by party. Republican Senators' votes also better represent white constituents. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The Democrats got the shutdown they wanted, and no one is happy My interview with Vox on why the Democrats did not win policy concessions & caved, with an outcome like prior shutdowns but difficult to learn lessons www.yahoo.com/news/article...

I'm not sure why there would be another shutdown at end of January. Some Dems have learned they are unlikely to get anything out of it & others have learned that their members will cave in the end (which means the same outcome).

The PR was fine. The polling was good. The ask was targeted. And it still didn't matter. You can't win real concessions so the question is whether the base likes a long fight with little to show for it or if it just angers them more because you caved in the end.

Dem voters also favored a shutdown & thought Republicans would be blamed (though more narrowly) last time they forced one (over DACA in Jan 2018): www.cnn.com/2018/01/19/p... But most said it was not worth it afterward (because they did not win anything): www.cnn.com/2018/01/25/p...

Immigration-driven diversity increases innovation How Cultural Diversity Drives Innovation: Surnames and Patents in U.S. History www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

You can apply to be the Associate Director of @IPPSR here, joining me in all our endeavors (when I return from sabbatical): careers.msu.edu/jobs/special...

Thermostatic backlash in elections stems from both 1) general incumbent dissatisfaction / responsibility for conditions & 2) response to policy overshooting & ideological direction. It often takes the form of both 1) swing voting & 2) differential turnout journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Election results showed a nationalized thermostatic backlash against the party of the president, similar to 1st Trump term but with even smaller candidate & issue effects & regardless of turnout.

dem margin in 2025 statewide races vs 2024 pres NJ and VA identical curves PA and GA much higher (PA here is the partisan statewide Commonwealth Court race)

cultural over economic coverage on cable news mobilizes viewers who would otherwise watch entertainment programming, so cable news emphasizes cultural politics much more than politicians trying to maximize vote share www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/27v4x...

Studying social sciences & humanities makes students more left-leaning, controlling for initial views & major preference, driven by cultural views. Implies that if all students majored in business, college–noncollege ideological gap would shrink by 1/3 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Union members have polarized by education level, with non-college members now less affected by their union membership. Union members have maintained their Democratic partisanship only by becoming more educated over time journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

But that's just variance. Everyone wants to know about average bias. Here it is. Polls in the last two weeks of the campaign overstated Democratic margins by 2.7 points across all offices—smaller than the 4.6-point overestimate in 2020 and 3.1 points in 2016. But that's a Dem bias 3 cycles in a row.

It is finally finished and released! I was proud to be a member of the Task Force on 2024 Pre-Election Polling, and to play just a small role in producing this report. Here is the report: aapor.org/wp-content/u... And here is the Executive Summary: aapor.org/wp-content/u...

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

New review of Polarized by Degrees as a book of the political moment: academic.oup.com/poq/advance-...

How the Money Chase Governs our Elections Early $ still governs who runs, who lasts, & who rises in Congress, even though it's often spent just to raise more @daniellethomsen.bsky.social on The Money Signal on the #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript: www.niskanencenter.org/how-the-mone...

1) It is now harder for Dem candidates to differentiate themselves from the national Dem brand & ideology is only 1 among a few things making vanishingly small differences 2) Ideology & issue focus of national Dem brand is harder to move, given party network, media, & Rep attacks

preferences for redistribution & moral attitudes are not becoming more polarized across countries & have become more homogeneous in many. Attitudes about morality & redistribution are increasingly sorted by party in the US, but hardly in other countries www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle...

Across countries, unequal congruence between high- & low-income voters & policy is driven by status quo bias, rather than unequal abilities to achieve policy change. high-income advantage stems largely from their satisfaction with preserving the status quo onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

experiencing the Advanced Child Tax Credit did generate substantial and lasting increases in support among Republican parents onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Independent candidates do better than Democratic candidates with equivalent messages in rust belt states images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/u... Discussed as the Democratic brand penalty on Ezra (they also briefly discuss Polarized by Degrees): www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/o...

Trump's redeployment of federal power is leading to an increase in (normally conservative) views among Democrats that the federal government has too much power & that agencies are ineffective, moving closer to Republican views. news.gallup.com/poll/696191/... news.gallup.com/poll/696059/...

Democrats still prefer that their leaders compromise, even under Trump news.gallup.com/poll/695690/...