Political inexperience in Congress has measurable effects on legislative outcomes. Our research finds that when districts elect political newcomers over career politicians, congressional dysfunction tends to increase. New explainer of our PNAS study: theconversation.com/amateur-hour...

Amateur hour in Congress: How political newcomers fuel gridlock and government shutdowns buff.ly/p9jff1L

Amateur politicians contribute to legislative dysfunction. Great post and research from my colleague @rachelporter.bsky.social!

Political inexperience in Congress has measurable effects on legislative outcomes. Our research finds that when districts elect political newcomers over career politicians, congressional dysfunction tends to increase. New explainer of our PNAS study: theconversation.com/amateur-hour...

Calm before the storm! Today is the day: the inaugural IU Center on American Politics Conference. Speakers: Mike Wagner, Marc Hetherington, Josh McCrain, myself, Julia Azari, Rachel Lienesch, Rachel Porter, Sean Westwood. Follow this thread for key points from talks. 🧵

Applications are due soon for our postdoctoral / visiting student position in representation and legislative studies! We will begin reviewing files next week! Please apply (or encourage your students to apply) apply.interfolio.com/175219

Since 2018, Republican candidates have completely erased a massive Democratic edge in emphasizing education issues.

I agree with this --- CampaignView (campaignview.org) data for 2024 should be released in the next few weeks, but across select issues, we find modest movement left by House Dem candidates (at the issue level) in recent years. Both parties moved to the extreme on energy issues (1/2 sd).

I haven't spent a ton of time working through this, but it draws heavily on national party insights to make recommendations for Dem candidates... who are already doing these things? Over three-quarters of Ds discuss economics, healthcare etc.... campaignview.org www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Important thread on the "aren't Dems already doing the things you're telling them to do" angle

I haven't spent a ton of time working through this, but it draws heavily on national party insights to make recommendations for Dem candidates... who are already doing these things? Over three-quarters of Ds discuss economics, healthcare etc.... campaignview.org www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Look. It would be great if there was one simple trick for winning elections. But 'just be more moderate' isn't it. In fact, you can use the NYT's exact method to 'prove' a 'Progressive Advantage' of +1.4 pts. This piece shows what's really going on: funded candidates do better than unfunded ones.

Every cycle, we relearn the same lesson: candidates without governing experience can become liabilities fast onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Congratulations to Rachel Porter, Jeff Harden, and Mackenzie Dobson on their new publication in PNAS! Their article, "Electing amateur politicians reduces cross-party collaboration," stems from research conducted in the Representation and Politics in Legislatures Lab. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Currently in FirstView: In “Balancing Precision and Retention in Experimental Design,” @gustavodiaz.org and Erin Rossiter study how experimental design choices can increase precision when estimating treatment effects. Specifically, they examine block-randomized and pre-post designs.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Great thread. One of the reasons political scientists typically don't like term limits.

Just published at PNAS (@pnas.org): “Electing amateur politicians reduces cross-party collaboration” We show that districts electing first-time members of the U.S. House experience substantial declines in bipartisan representation in the subsequent Congress. 🧵1/4

These postdoctoral positions are made possible by an incredible $55 million gift from Francis & Kathleen Rooney to support Notre Dame’s new institute focused on democracy research and education 🔗 al.nd.edu/news/latest-...

The Rooney Democracy Institute at Notre Dame is seeking a postdoc or visiting PhD student in legislative institutions and/or representation, under the direction of Jim Curry, Jeff Harden, and Rachel Porter (@rachelporter.bsky.social) Applications due November 15th: apply.interfolio.com/175219

🚨 Call for PostDoc or Visiting PhD Student 🚨 apply.interfolio.com/175219 We're seeking an American Politics scholar of leg. institutions or representation, under the direction of Jim Curry, Jeff Harden, and Rachel Porter (me!), affiliated with our Representation and Politics in Legislatures Lab

Are you into voters/parties/ideology/elections/administrative data? Then we have good news!✨ 🦈 Our first session of Fall 2025 is tomorrow 10/1 at 1 PM ET/10 AM PT 🦈 We'll have 2 great papers on 🗳️ Voting & Elections 🗳️ from Pei-Hsun Hsieh (UPenn) and Graham Straus (UCLA)

We're hiring at UNC Political Science! Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Methods (Deadline Oct 24) unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307... #polisky #psjobs #poliscijobs

I’m on the committee for this search and am happy to answer questions as well. Come join us at ND! ☘️

FirstView day for my PSRM article, “Presidential Negative Partisanship.” 🥳 I show presidents attack the opposition most (not persuade) when legislating is least likely to succeed—and those attacks mobilize their own side. cambridge.org/core/journal... Read on for the 🧵 version...

As a part of this project, I am committed to estimating and sharing WEB Scores for future congressional elections online for other researchers interested in campaign positioning (github.com/crcase/WEB-S...). WEB Scores for 2024 should be posted in the next few weeks (7/8)

Amazing work by @colinrcase.bsky.social --- another great example of the work that can be done with CampaignView data! campaignview.org

Notre Dame’s Department of Political Science is hiring *multiple* senior folks (assoc/full prof) working on democracy broadly (institutions, political behavior, CP, AP). I’m not on the committee (hiding on research leave), but I'm happy to chat / answer questions! 👉 apply.interfolio.com/172986

FOR THE LAST TIME, LEE PICKS OHIO STATE AND WE'RE OFF

Amazing new method/package from @joeornstein.bsky.social! I've used this record linkage approach in multiple projects, and it is 💯!!!

I'm thrilled that my book, Unity through Particularism: How Electoral Reforms Influence Parties and Legislative Behavior, is now available for pre-order through CUP and Amazon! Let me know if you'd like an electronic copy for your class, and I'll send it to you! www.cambridge.org/us/universit...

Reposted from @alexandersahn.bsky.social: Data from CampaignView(campaignview.org) show that the only term that Democrats used in more than 1% of statements in campaign platforms (2018-2022) is *privilege*

Both Emma Schroeder and Abigail Hemmen are on the market this Fall, so look for their applications and my enthusiastic letters of recommendation. 2/3 www.abigailhemmen.com politicalscience.nd.edu/people/emma-...

Great new paper on electoral accountability for elites who participated in and/or supported the Jan 6 insurrection from an outstanding team of Notre Dame faculty and grad students. 1/3

With Jan 6th back in the news... We find that elites who engaged in anti-election action on/after the insurrection faced uneven accountability, with harsh penalties for those at the Capitol, and mild consequences for other undemocratic acts osf.io/preprints/os... Forthcoming @bjpols.bsky.social

If folks are looking for political commercials to show in their classes this fall, don't forget about the Campaign Television Advertisement Project with 9,707 presidential ads from 1952-2012. campaigntvads.org Our paper, forthcoming in Nature: Scientific Data is here arxiv.org/abs/2503.22589

Great coverage from @notredame.bsky.social on CampaignView! Read about it here: news.nd.edu/news/open-ac...

5/6 🧵In ‪@ajpseditor.bsky.social‬ @luciamotoliniac.bsky.social Klašnja & @simonweschle.bsky.social‬ show that higher pressures to spend in campaigns leads to a wealthier politician pool. Use data on MP wealth from 40 countries, & quasiexperimental evidence from 🇧🇷 & 🇨🇱 https://doi.org/pz7c

For journalists, researchers, & others tracking the judiciary: This was a slog to get running, but I've built a data pipeline to track these rulings from court dockets. I'm making the dataset public today. It will be updated regularly. Hope you find it useful. Explore the data here: bit.ly/45dh8ZG

We have a JOP article about how swifties ~randomly denied tickets to the eras tour due to website allocation errors changed their views on related policies www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

💰 How should we measure early campaign fundraising? ▶️ @colinrcase.bsky.social & @rachelporter.bsky.social propose two distinct approaches: candidate-centred and election-centred early money. Explore their framework👇 www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView

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.

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

💸 How should scholars measure early money in campaigns? Our new @psrm.bsky.social article in FirstView (w @colinrcase.bsky.social) offers a theoretical and empirical framework, as well as practical guidance for working with FEC data 🔗https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10014

Now out in @ajpseditor.bsky.social: @luciamotoliniac.bsky.social, Marko Klašnja and I show that greater pressures to spend more money on campaigning leads not just to more politicians who are rich, but especially to more politicians who are are *super* rich onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

📢 Thrilled to share our new article introducing CampaignView—a comprehensive open-source dataset of congressional candidate campaign bios and policy platforms (2018–2022). Paper + data here: campaignview.org & doi.org/10.7910/DVN/... 🧵1/4

Mondays, as I right?

Absolutely thrilled to welcome Ken Sheve back to Notre Dame as the Dean of our College of Arts & Letters. A spectacular appointment for Notre Dame political science and the college as a whole. Good things are happening here. news.nd.edu/news/kenneth...

The new Pope didn't tweet once in 2024. In 2025, he's posted 5 times, in which he: - Criticized JD Vance's views on Catholicism and Jesus - Posted an article opposing Trump's immigration policies - Retweeted twice about the Pope's health - Retweeted a criticism of Trump & Bukele's laughter at KAG.

RIP my replication archives...