Protests over police brutality have gripped the nation. But how do racial minorities in highly policed communities think about political action and mobilize to fight unfairness, when they are facing force and indignities that often lead to withdrawal? Vesla Weaver finds complicated but negative attitudes toward police. Overpolicied communities are often motivated for change, though not always traditional politics. Hannah Walker finds that criminal justice experience can mobilize people if they p...
Jul 01, 2020•53 min
Republicans lost control of the House in 2018 and now could lose the Senate this year. Their fortunes seem tied to Trump and his agenda, but new research suggests they would be better off trying to distinguish themselves from him and his policies. Sarah Treul finds that votes to repeal Obamacare cost Republicans seats in Congress in 2018. They did not listen to their constituents at Town Hall meetings and the repeal effort resulted in lower vote share. Andrew Ballard finds that Trump endorsed a ...
Jun 17, 2020•45 min
Protests are heating up over police brutality in the middle of a presidential election year. Can protests change election outcomes or the future of the parties? New research suggests that protests do leave their mark--and the Trump protest era has been quite active. Daniel Gillion finds that liberal protests help Democrats win elections, stimulating new campaign contributions, public support, and candidacies, and increasing their vote share. Michael Heaney finds that protests respond to the part...
Jun 03, 2020•37 min
Joe Biden is about to select his vice-presidential running mate, having pledged to choose a woman. Will the pick change his chance of victory or the future of the Democratic Party? New research suggests running mates may not have the direct influence that most expect—but they do send strong signals about presidential candidates and their parties. Christopher Devine and Kyle Kopko find that vice presidential nominees do not have home state or regional effects and do not seem to help attract affil...
May 20, 2020•44 min
President Trump has consolidated Republican support in Congress and the wider party network, despite a lot of initial concerns. Whatever became of the Never Trump movement that arose in the 2016 campaign? And who, if anyone, is still resisting Trump within the Republican Party? Steven Teles and Robert Saldin find that public intellectuals and foreign policy elites were more willing to take on Trump than lawyers and economists, but all of the movement mattered for the campaign and the administrat...
May 06, 2020•50 min
Donald Trump is trying to link the COVID-19 pandemic to fear of immigration. There is precedent for linking infectious disease to that issue and winning elections as a result. When an Ebola outbreak came to U.S. public attention just before the 2014 midterm elections, Republicans were able to use it to their political advantage. Claire Adida finds that Republican politicians successfully raised fear of immigration by politicizing Ebola. Filipe Campante finds that local Ebola outbreaks gave Repub...
Apr 22, 2020•47 min
Many African-Americans see themselves as conservatives and hold conservative policy positions. But Black voters overwhelmingly identify as Democrats and vote for Democratic candidates. Why can't Republicans increase their Black voter support despite rising conservatism? Ismail White and Chryl Laird find that African-Americans live in segregated social networks that enforce a norm of Democratic voting. Black voters are more supportive of Republicans when they do not feel social pressure. Tasha Ph...
Apr 08, 2020•53 min
The COVID-19 coronavirus has upended American’s lives and heightened our anxieties. That’s likely to have a lot of political consequences. How do Americans respond to imminent threats and how does our anxiety change how we seek information, who we trust, and what policies we support? Bethany Albertson and Shana Gadarian find that Americans seek information, trust the experts, and seek protective policies in response to public health threats like infectious disease. But our biases increase and ou...
Mar 25, 2020•45 min
How did concerns about Hillary Clinton dominate voters' concerns in 2016, despite the scandal- & gaffe-prone campaign of Donald Trump? Did media coverage and social sharing doom Clinton? And can we expect a similar pattern in 2020? Jonathan Ladd finds that citizens heard a succession of negative things about Trump, but remembered the one big scandal about Clinton: her emails. Hal Roberts finds that conservative media produced and shared harmful stories about Clinton, while Democrats mostly f...
Mar 11, 2020•53 min
Michael Bloomberg is setting records for television advertising spending in the 2020 presidential primaries and we expect more records in the general election. The last two cycles have seen Democrats out-advertise Republicans, but how many votes did it earn them? Erika Franklin Fowler and Michael Franz find that the 2018 cycle was still dominated by television advertising focused on health care, a big change from 2016's personal attacks on Donald Trump. The go-to experts from the Wesleyan Media ...
Feb 26, 2020•38 min
Americans have lost faith in our political and community institutions. Our leaders are increasingly performing for the crowd, rather than improving the institutions they inhabit. Eitan Hersch finds that Americans say they are spending time on politics, when they are just watching from the sidelines and commenting online. Yuval Levin finds that even those with power in Congress, universities, and media outlets are using our institutions as interchangeable platforms for publicity seeking, when the...
Feb 12, 2020•46 min
Americans dislike the two major parties, which are fighting more and compromising less. But Does that open the way for the rise of third parties and the huge institutional changes necessary to bring it about? Lee Drutman finds that a new multi-party system is the only way out of our cycle of polarization and democratic decay. He sees opportunities on the horizon, favoring the adoption of ranked choice voting in larger, multi-member House districts. But Jack Santucci finds that the two parties ha...
Jan 29, 2020•48 min
The emerging consensus is that Donald Trump won the 2016 election by divisively appealing to voters’ views on race and immigration. But Justin Grimmer and Will Marble find that Trump gained votes over Romney among low-education white voters, largely independents and moderates, who had centrist views on race and immigration. In contrast, John Sides and Lynn Vavreck find that the 2016 campaign activated voters’ attitudes on race, immigration, and identity, making them more important in driving vot...
Jan 15, 2020•56 min
2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage. Christina Wolbrecht of Notre Dame and Kevin Corder of Western Michigan take the opportunity to review women's vote turnout and choice over time, tracking gender differences and similarities. They find that women increasingly vote at higher rates than men and vote more for Democrats. They show that scholars and commentators have changed their views of women voters over time, often using stere...
Jan 02, 2020•45 min
Black turnout was down in 2016, costing Hillary Clinton pivotal votes and raising questions about whether post-Obama Democrats can mobilize Black voters. We know President Trump is angering and mobilizing a lot of White Democrats but that may not translate the same way for Black voters. Davin Phoenix finds that Black Americans express less anger than White Americans and anger does not stimulate them as much to participate in politics. Christopher Towler finds that African-Americans who strongly ...
Dec 18, 2019•51 min
Republican and Democratic politicians offer very different agendas and proposals, but do they translate into real differences in outcomes? John Holbein finds that party control of government does not have any near-term impact across dozens of social and economic outcomes. But Jacob Grumbach finds that recent party control is associated with big changes in policy in some issue areas, sometimes producing real differences in directly-related outcomes like health insurance rates. Parties influence p...
Dec 04, 2019•46 min
Although the 2020 presidential candidates are investing huge shares of their time and resources in Iowa and New Hampshire, new research suggests early-state momentum may not matter much in our nationalized presidential race. John Sides finds that Donald Trump dominated media coverage well before election results in 2016, crowding out his opponents. Marc Trussler finds that state election victories didn’t seem to cause bigger-than-normal shifts in polls in 2016, with any campaign day just as like...
Nov 20, 2019•47 min
The House is moving toward impeachment. What are the electoral risks for Democrats in pursuit and Republicans in defense of President Trump? We learn from research on the role of the impeachment of Bill Clinton on the 1998 and 2000 elections and compare how things look today for Trump. Gary Jacobson finds that other factors overwhelmed impeachment in congressional elections, but a few Republicans may have been hurt. Irwin Morris finds that parties can work to protect their members who vote again...
Nov 06, 2019•40 min
How Trump Politicized Refugees by Niskanen Center
Oct 23, 2019•52 min
Most policymaking occurs in federal agencies, rather than Congress, and interest groups know that’s where the action is. That’s led many to fear that agencies are captured by regulated industries and can’t make good policy. But Rachel Augustine Potter finds that agencies strategically propose complicated rules and design short rulemaking periods when they are facing interest group pressure, avoiding pressure from lobbyists and other branches of government. Maraam Dwidar finds that agencies do ch...
Oct 09, 2019•43 min
Republicans have gained a lot of electoral ground in the states, while building an impressive infrastructure of conservative organizations to push policy rightward. But have they succeeded? Alex Hertel-Fernandez finds that organizations of conservative legislators, advocacy groups, and think tanks jointly shifted state policy and neutered their political opponents. But Matt Grossmann finds that despite major gains in the states, Republicans did not transform the size or scope of state government...
Sep 25, 2019•56 min
The American Public's Growing Ideological Sophistication by Niskanen Center
Sep 10, 2019•43 min
Americans mistrust services provided by the public sector, even though they increasingly rely on government programs. Amy Lerman finds that citizens perceive public services as inefficient and lower quality, causing them to misperceive good services as private and opt out of public services. Suzanne Mettler finds that Americans increasingly rely on government for their income. But because programs are hidden, their views of government don’t become more positive even if they directly benefit. Bot...
Aug 28, 2019•47 min
When and why do presidential debates change voter views? How, if at all, did they help Donald Trump last time? Ethan Porter finds that the post-debate commentary changes voter views as much as the debate itself, with Fox and MSNBC viewers getting quite different impressions--but not enough to change who they support. Patrick Stewart finds that candidates go for applause lines and laughs to reach voters and create meme-worthy moments, which are reflected in the in-person audience reaction. This s...
Aug 14, 2019•36 min
Conventional wisdom holds that Trump won the 2016 election by appealing to voters left behind in Obama's economy and may win re-election based on a stronger economy in 2020. But new research casts doubt on both stories. Sean Freeder finds that the effect of economic performance on the president's re-election has been declining since the 1980s because citizens both misperceive the economy and selectively credit the president to match their partisan bias. Robert Griffin finds that 2016 Trump suppo...
Jul 31, 2019•42 min
Our geographic divides are central to contemporary politics, including the election of Donald Trump. Election maps show dense liberal cities in a sea of sparsely-populated Red, advantaging Republicans in our geographic electoral system. Why are Democrats concentrating in cities? Jonathan Rodden finds increasingly concentrated left parties around the world, disadvantaging liberal cities. It started with unionized industrial railroad hubs but accelerated with the changing cultural values of the pa...
Jul 17, 2019•51 min
White liberals are quickly moving leftward on racial issues in what has been called “The Great Awokening.” Zach Goldberg finds that white liberals are greatly increasing their perceptions of discrimination, their tolerance of academic identity politics, and their support for immigration and affirmative action, coaxed along by rising liberalism in social and online media. But Emily Wager finds that in diverse states, rising economic inequality is making the public more conservative on economic po...
Jul 03, 2019•40 min
Despite a broad field of qualified women and minority candidates, two white men are now leading the Democratic presidential field. Even after supporting women for Congress, why are Democrats shying away this time? Neil Visalvanich finds that neither party discriminates against women or minority candidates in congressional races, with Democratic Party donors actually favoring white women. But that may not apply to this year’s presidential race. Seth Masket finds that, when told that Hillary Clint...
Jun 19, 2019•46 min
Atop Democratic primary polls, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are re-igniting a debate about whether moderates are more electable. Are voters pushing the candidates to the extremes or just looking for moderate alternatives? Andrew Hall finds that moderate candidates are more likely to win general elections, but that they are running for office less often than extremists. The benefits of office are declining and the costs are increasing, especially for potential moderates. But Stephen Utych finds t...
Jun 05, 2019•49 min
Obamacare substantially increased American health coverage, but now some states and the Trump administration are acting to curtail benefits. Do Obamacare exchanges and Medicaid help stimulate new voters or even help Democrats win? Jamila Michener finds that Medicaid mobilizes voters, but only if it is well-administered and effective. States, counties, and even neighborhoods matter to how beneficiaries react. Vlad Kogan finds that, while Medicaid and Obamacare generally helped Democrats, a last-m...
May 22, 2019•48 min
