🚨 New paper out at @ajpseditor.bsky.social 🚨 Do the public hold meaningful attitudes? Using the case of abortion policy preferences, we provide strong evidence that policy prefrences can be coherent, stable over time, and causally explain vote choice. doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

Check out this neat write up of our latest work in the @apsrjournal.bsky.social!

This is an important paper at @apsrjournal.bsky.social. It's not exactly surprising that racism undermines effective representation, but it is well and carefully done. Congrats to @markarianga.bsky.social, @jacobhacker.bsky.social, @maclockhart.bsky.social, and Hajnal doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Check out this great thread on our latest work out now in the APSR!

Our new @apsrjournal.bsky.social is out! We study whether policy and congresspeople are more responsive to White Americans than racial minorities, matching individual level opinion to policy outcomes and roll call votes on 134 issues using 500K survey responses from 2016-2022. 1/n

Honoured to see our work recognized in this way. The project started in my first year of graduate school, so I’m glad to see the many, many hours we put in were worth it.

Two paper rejections in one day! I think it's a sign I should log off my email to make sure it doesn't hit 3.

From February 2025 - Can Official Messaging on Trust in Elections Break Through Partisan Polarization? - cup.org/433kRJP - @jengaudette.bsky.social, @sethjhill.bsky.social, Thad Kousser, @maclockhart.bsky.social & Mindy Romero #OpenAccess

With the Canadian election looming, are you wondering about how provincial politics might affect the federal outcome? Our pre-print shows where you should expect to see provincial politics bleed over the most (spoiler alert - the answer is Quebec!)

New pre-print out with Alex Rivard ( @sfufass.bsky.social): "I’m a Federal Sovereigntist but a Provincial Nationalist: Party Identification in a Multi-Level Westminster Democracy" Ever wondered how voters handle partisan identity at levels besides the national government?

Did I promise myself not to take on any new projects? Yes. Did I take on a new project because I promised myself it was a teenie tiny little itty bitty project? Also yes. Is it going to end up being a teenie tiny little itty bitty project? I plead the fifth.

I happily subscribed to the WaPo for their news coverage and stayed subscribed through many editorials I disagreed with because I believe in paying for journalism. But an editorial page with an official point of view is not something I need to fund. I’ll take my subscription dollars elsewhere.

NEW - Can Official Messaging on Trust in Elections Break Through Partisan Polarization? - cup.org/433kRJP - @jengaudette.bsky.social, @sethjhill.bsky.social, Thad Kousser, @maclockhart.bsky.social & Mindy Romero

🚨 New paper out at @bjpols.bsky.social 🚨 Can Official Messaging on Trust in Elections Break Through Partisan Polarization? Yes! We show, using large national and state specific survey experiments, that public information campaigns from election officials work.

🚨 New paper out at @bjpols.bsky.social 🚨 Can Official Messaging on Trust in Elections Break Through Partisan Polarization? Yes! We show, using large national and state specific survey experiments, that public information campaigns from election officials work.

The executive branch does not have the legal right to cancel appropriated spending or eliminate agencies created by Congress. Trump and Musk are doing both. Entirely lawless and unconstitutional. The world's largest provider of food assistance shut down. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

I’ve started getting some pretty aggressive online advertising for Botox recently, and now I’m really curious which algorithm thinks I look old.

I have a giant pop, a chair that is weirdly capable of shaking, and am about to watch a new Lord of the Rings movie in theatres. It doesn’t get better than this.

@maclockhart.bsky.social presents his evidence of the impact of declining local news on primary elections.

This is a pretty genuine phenomenon that we document in our paper at The Forum. People feel better about their own conditions than the country as a whole across a lot of areas! doi.org/10.1515/for-...

Trying to interpret the swing state swings from 2016-2024 is hopeless. Each election was won by a margin of between 80,000 and 250,000 votes (total) in MI, PA, and WI. There are members of the California State Senate with those kinds of margins.

I was at a bar with my twin brother last night and one bartender commented that we looked like twins. The other bartender would not believe it until my brother took his glasses off when her mind was blown. I have a newfound respect for Clark Kent's disguise.

It's like Cersei Lannister's Small Council in Game of Thrones. You'd struggle to draft a worse set of people.

Encouragingly, prebunking by election officials that explains the reasons that the vote count can take multiple days reverses the harms to election confidence that delays otherwise cause (especially among Republicans) academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Why isn’t there greater political pressure in the United States to enhance public policy? A new study from Alan Gerber, @ericpatashnik.bsky.social, and @maclockhart.bsky.social finds a clue in affluent Americans' perception of insulation. bit.ly/3X1zEjD

If you’re annoyed by the NYT, please turn your attention to the Cal State system’s impending strike. 23 campuses that serve nearly 500,000 students will be on strike Jan. 22-26 demanding better pay, parental leave for a semester, and safer working conditions for queer and BIPOC faculty.

Unbelievably cool to see my brother @guslockhart.bsky.social speak to a HoC Committee today on AI in the workplace. The family group chat probably enjoyed the experience more than he did!

I'm happy to be able to share a new working paper with Jennifer Gaudette, Seth Hill, Thad Kousser, Mindy Romero, and Laura Uribe showing that federalism and polarization interact to produce significant nationalized distrust in elections. LINK: osf.io/x9zg5

Probably the most painful thing I’ve done, and that includes TAing a methods course and moving from San Diego to Connecticut.

I don’t understand any theory of political contributions in the US that relies on Members of Congress or candidates for Congress caring about a $2-5,000 donation enough to change their legislative behaviour on any dimension that matters.

Bless the FEC who responded to my data inquiry in under an hour.

Fall foliage has hit one particular 400m stretch of my running route and it’s great - especially during sunrise.

From @viet.bsky.social and myself - With AI, focus on the science and leave the fiction to science fiction writers. www.thestar.com/business/wit...

Guess I should post something here, so I’m linking my job market paper! I examine the effects of ideological polarization on local politics through the lens of police union endorsements. tinyurl.com/2s7kdpem

Being an international scholar means your job is actually just paperwork, not research.

Anyone have a good explainer for how DIME tracks donors over time? Trying to decide what individual donor records can and can’t be used for but I think I need to know more about the process of building time series for individual donors to decide!

Still no internet today (day 3 of outages), but there was free breakfast this morning which is a trade I'll take.

The internet on my work computer is still down, so I figured I'd check out this place.