‘Polarization’ has become the master concept for diagnosing our current democratic crisis. But this is not polarization. It is the radicalization of the political right. By misdiagnosing it, we risk becoming complicit in the crisis. 🧵 Just out in Perspectives on Politics doi.org/10.1017/S153...

Expanding mail voting in 2020 helped more people in all racial groups to vote by mail, but its effect on government trust is less clear find @maraynam.bsky.social , @atrexler.com and @profsorelle.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...

Representativeness and response validity across nine opt-in online samples

My department @uwpolisci.bsky.social is hiring an assistant professor with expertise in environmental politics jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

a new working paper with Chris Johnston & @stephenvaisey.com! we study issue opinions among a novel sample of 10-12-year-olds, showing that children, contrary to received wisdom, express reasonably structured preferences. a working paper here: tkeskinturk.github.io/poldevelopment.pdf

🚨 🚨Calling all #polisky grad students who presented at #ISA2026: I'm chairing the committee for the Human Rights Section’s Steven C Poe best grad student paper award. We are currently accepting nominations, including self-nominations, and all you have to do is email your paper to me!

My department is hiring an assistant professor in political theory with a focus on American political thought and/or American constitutionalism jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

Seeing lots of "voters are dumb" takes on this, Converse laser-eyes, etc. Consider the survey-taking experience. Ppl see/interpret these individually and give atomized answers. Q1: What will make Ds electable? Move to center. Q2: Is D party radical? No. Q3: Your personal view? Socialism = good.

New work with @ryanmoore.bsky.social in @digitaljournalism.bsky.social examines Americans' exposure to Pink Slime websites--partisan websites that masquerade as local news--and compares consumption levels to untrustworthy and genuine local news websites doi.org/10.1080/2167...

new WP (w/ @ntd.bsky.social): we use the case of Christian nationalism to make a broader point about "niche ideologies" in mass opinion research, and why you shouldn't scale them the same way you'd scale more general attitudes Link: osf.io/wbdut/files/...

#OpenAccess from @journalrep.bsky.social - Election Administration and Voting Behavior among Americans of Color - https://cup.org/3PhctC0 - @maraynam.bsky.social, @atrexler.com & @profsorelle.bsky.social#OpenAccess #FirstView

From our FirstView: Threats and Commitments: International Tribunals and Domestic Trials in Peace Negotiations by @genbates.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Cumulative science at its best.

Thrilled to announce my paper with @dianamejordan.bsky.social & sky-less Trent Ollerenshaw is now published open-access at @apsrjournal.bsky.social. In a (very) large replication & extension, we show that design effects of repeated measure experiments are nonzero but typically small. Thread:

From February 2026 - The Unequal Challenge of Learning from Under-Informative News - https://cup.org/461vHAT "findings shed light on the importance of considering heterogeneous preferences along ethnicities within the same racial ‘in-group’" - @atrexler.com #OpenAccess

extremely happy to share that "Political Pundits and the Maintenance of Ideological Coalitions" is conditionally accepted at @polbehavior.bsky.social osf.io/8c3fr/files/...

We’re hiring — help us spread the word! @tnridout.bsky.social @mikefranz.bsky.social

The APSA Political Communication section is accepting nominations for its annual awards. Please send nominations directly to the chair of each committee. 🔎 More details on awards, committee, and eligibility criteria: politicalcommunication.org/awards/

🧵on my new paper "Synthetic personas distort the structure of human belief systems" w Roberto Cerina I'm v excited about... 🚨 Do synthetic samples look like human samples? We compare 28 LLMs to the 2024 General Social Survey (GSS) to find out + develop host of diagnostics...

Exciting news! We just posted an opening for a Survey Associate on @pewresearch.org's Methods team! This is an amazing opportunity for someone relatively early in their career to join what is, IMO, the most fun methods team in the business. Full description at the link below.

New w/@scottclifford.bsky.social. Lots of work uses agree-disagree scales, and a lit review shows these are 1) frequently just measured in one direction (agree = higher trait) and 2) correlated with each other. This has potentially big issues for conclusions. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🚨 Just a handful of days left, DL March 1!🚨 🔥 Walter Lippmann Award for Best Published Article in the field of political communication (2025)🔥 SELF NOMINATIONS WELCOME & EASY: Just send me email with article @apsa.bsky.social @polcomm.bsky.social @ecpr-polcom.bsky.social @ascor.bsky.social 👇

🚨 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...

Can feed algorithms shape what people think about politics? Our paper "The Political Effects of X's Feed Algorithm" is out today in Nature and answers "Yes." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I'm teaching a few survey research courses live and online. First, a free one hour seminar. Feb 20 instats.org/seminar/surv... Then a set of two (half) day courses. Not free (sorry!). -Intro Surveys (Feb 26-27): instats.org/seminar/intr... -Advanced Surveys (March 5-6): instats.org/seminar/adva...

🧵 New paper out in AJPS! "Seeing like a citizen: Experimental evidence on how empowerment affects engagement with the state" With @lbp2106.bsky.social, @wilsonprichard.bsky.social, @cdsamii.bsky.social, and Raúl Sánchez de la Sierra. doi.org/10.1111/ajps... 1/11

Congrats @atrexler.com! There is a major disconnect between what newsrooms think people want—often based on metrics about the highly engaged audiences they are currently serving—and what the public actually needs to make sense of political phenomena. Such important work!

Very excited to see this out at @bjpols.bsky.social! In this article, I show that contemporary political news coverage makes it challenging for readers to learn information that is helpful for democratic accountability, even for very politically engaged audiences. A brief summary:

NEW - The Unequal Challenge of Learning from Under-Informative News - https://cup.org/461vHAT - @atrexler.com #OpenAccess

🎺 Call for proposals 🎺 1️⃣ replicate an existing experiment 2️⃣ run a novel experiment on repdata.com 3️⃣ coauthor with Mary McGrath and me to meta-analyze the replications and existing studies 4️⃣ publish your study details: alexandercoppock.com/replication_... applications open Feb 1 please repost!

BLOG POST! Explore the latest PSJ blog post examining how expanded mail voting relates to voter access, political efficacy, and trust in government. By Andrew Trexler, Marayna Martinez & Mallory E. SoRelle Read here: psjblog.net/2026/01/21/v... #PSJ #PolicyStudiesJournal

So cool -> Quebec researchers tracked eye dilation + sweat when showing respondents political issues to see if they aligned with results from standard poll questions on issue importance. They did! And suggest asking people to choose their top issue is most reliable academic.oup.com/poq/article/...

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Working on a dissertation in American political behavior and need money for survey research? Apply for a grant worth up to $15,000 from the Rapoport Family Foundation. They’re planning on awarding up to 15 grants this cycle. Deadline Oct. 22. www.rapoportfamilyfoundation.com/phdgrant

How common are “survey professionals” - people who take dozens of online surveys for pay - across online panels, and do they harm data quality? Our paper, FirstView at @politicalanalysis.bsky.social, tackles this question using browsing data from three U.S. samples (Facebook, YouGov, and Lucid):

UW-Madison PoliSci is hiring in environmental politics! Posting is linked below. I am not on the committee but am very happy to answer any questions I can about the position, department, Madison, etc.

My department @uwmadison.bsky.social is hiring an assistant professor with expertise in environmental politics. Send us your application. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

📅 Only one week to go until APSA 2025! We’ve prepared a clear and concise visual program for the #PolComm division. 👉 Download the PDF and highlight the sessions you don’t want to miss: shorturl.at/LVuuw

There's a new issue of the section newsletter out! This one's on sample considerations in experiments: professional survey-takers, LLM usage, rural contexts, and more! connect.apsanet.org/s42/newslett...

Voting access reforms in 2020 aimed to protect democracy during a pandemic, but how did they shape political efficacy and trust? This PSJ article explores the answer. By @atrexler.com, @maraynam.bsky.social & Mallory E. SoRelle Read more here: doi.org/10.1111/psj.... #PSJ #PolicyStudiesJournal

Stony Brook is hiring in political psychology (assistant professor). Please Share! Feel free to reach out if you have question. For more information: apply.interfolio.com/170193

new working paper: osf.io/7v4zj tl;dr: taking the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor seriously requires taking the nuances of actually-existing markets seriously, which means thinking about tradeoffs between transaction costs and conformity costs. applied to misinfo and ideological belief systems.

AAPOR Statement on the Removal of BLS Commissioner McEntarfer aapor.org/statements/a...

Here's a treat for state politics and policy researchers: Ethan Dee and I published a dataset in Nature: Scientific Data with the universe of state legislative bills since ~2009 coded by 28 policy areas. We used a machine learning model built off open source components.

In my view, the window to *forestall* autocratization of the US political system is basically closed. We're now in the consolidation phase of a new authoritarian constitutional settlement. The question is how far it'll get (will it achieve its apparent goal of fascism?) & at what pace. Here's why:

Our article introducing CampaignView is now officially online! Check it out here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Causal evidence that "the proliferation of surveys may lead to lower response rates" doi.org/10.1093/jssa...