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

a new working paper: osf.io/3dq2x_v1! we administered an original survey to a sample of 10-to-12-year olds, their parents, and a national sample to assess the extent to which values can provide a foundation for political ideology. we find that values structure political preferences among children.

🎺 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...

Academics/adults with backpacks: I am in the market for a new backpack. Do you have a (work) backpack that you love? I have a North Face 'Hotshot' backpack that has served me faithfully for 10+ years but is finally wearing out, so I need to replace & want to consider options. Some parameters:

For several years, I have marked the 4th by reading Frederick Douglass's 1852 speech on the subject (a copy here: loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1852Fre...), sometimes alone, sometimes aloud to family or friends. This year it feels especially poignant. A few passages that particularly stick with me today:

With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.

Jason Stanley, philosopher and expert on fascism said “You know you're living in a fascist society when you're constantly going over in your head the reasons why YOU are safe.”

You Gov numbers: "Only 16% of Americans think the U.S. military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran; 60% say it should not and 24% are not sure" It's going to change quickly, but let's at least remember where we started. today.yougov.com/politics/art...

If the feds’ objective is to “liberate” Los Angeles and California from its democratically elected leadership, then this not a peacekeeping mission but a program of invasion.

Another video of Senator Padilla’s violent arrest at DHS Sec Noem’s press conference in LA. You can see him thrown to the ground by FBI agents and handcuffed. (video shared by Padilla’s staff with Elex Michaelson of Fox LA and posted on X)

New paper in PSPB! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Well, actually, not "new". We first put this paper online way back Dec 2022... in any case, we think it's really cool! We find that conspiracy believers tend to be overconfident & really don't seem to realize that most disagree with them

Call for proposals! EPOVB Early-Career Fellowship deadline: July 1, 2025 Submit to Melissa R. Michelson, at [email protected] dropbox.com/scl/fi/rcmsv...

new working paper (reposted with fixed/public link): osf.io/gbkn5

The decline of local news is undermining the volume of coverage of political scandals and the electoral consequences of them for politicians www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Don’t miss @atrexler.com & @mullinmeg.bsky.social’s open-access article, “Local News Reporting and Mass Attitudes on Infrastructure Investment,” showing that info-rich local reporting boosts support for preventative infrastructure spending. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Not the main thing here, but I keep seeing this claim from the WH/Fox/etc. that egg prices are falling, and that is just objectively, observably false.