New from Nichole Bauer and me in Politics & Gender: Do the electoral returns to earmarks for women and men depend on whether they are securing funds for projects that fit into feminine or masculine stereotypic strengths? We show the answer is "no." tiny.cc/8ycozz

Just published on APSR First View: "Access to Healthcare and Voting: The Case of Hospital Closures in Rural America," by Christian Cox, Derek Epp, and Michael Shepherd. cambridge.org/core/journals/…

A must-read from one of the best in the business ⬇️

This was a mistake politically! Voters need to be able to easily trace benefits back to government and to specific actors. There’s no reason to be bashful.

Today is a good day.

Three very difficult truths on election post-mortems 1. "Dems could have won if they'd only done X." Everyone has a version of this. But in virtually every case they *did* do X, often to an unprecedented degree. Economic populism, working class wages, abortion. $200m ads on the

Like clockwork, commentators interpret elections as ideological mandates. Trump wins, so voters hate progressives and want conservatism. Here's why that's wrong. 1) It doesn't help explain why parties *of all ideologies* lost vote share post-COVID.

Latest numbers: across the seven battleground states, the '20-'24 swing towards Trump was ~3.1 pts. Across the other 43 states (+DC), it was ~6.7 pts. Bottom line: the Harris campaign swam impressively against some very strong underlying currents.

I'm amused at the apocalyptic claims about how thoroughly demolished the Democrats were when the shift in votes was in the 3 percentage point range. We're living in a time when small changes in mass behavior and attitudes can have big changes in governing institutions. That's a

🫠🫠🫠 chronicle.com/article/a-texa…

Yep. Traceability matters: cambridge.org/core/journals/…

New working paper with Lanie Richards, a terrific graduate student UNT Political Science! Why is there such a weak relationship between pork barrel spending and U.S. House election outcomes? Some districts are just too damn big. Comments welcome! tinyurl.com/2bbrrb3s

📢New issue of #PAG20 is out!📢 Brian Hamel & Nichole Bauer investigate the link between gendered issue types and successful credit claiming in "Gender, Issue Stereotypes, and the Electoral Returns to Distributive Politics in the United States" buff.ly/40RBbvI

In 2012, 2024 surveys, I asked Americans if they prefer lowering (1) or raising (7) government spending/services. Respondents -> more pro-spending in 2024. But connection between these attitudes, vote choice = weaker in 2024. More pro-spending GOP voters in 2024 (26% vs 14%).

One of the long-forgotten policy backlashes I mention in my book Countermobilization was triggered by the McKinley Tariff of 1890 which led to a spike in consumer prices. Voters registered their anger in the 1890 midterms. Republicans lost 93 House seats and chamber control.

Federal cabinet and agency leaders are reducing their workforces. Who will be most affected? The same places that benefited from New Deal-era public works programs. New working paper with Michael Shepherd: dropbox.com/scl/fi/ql88dun… Comments welcome!

we have now posted the 2024 Cooperative Election Study common content dataset to the Dataverse Project! data from 60,000 American adults interviewed before & after the election. thanks to YouGov America & Caroline Soler for getting this data produced & posted doi.org/10.7910/DVN/X1…

This is still true.

From our new issue: "Traceability and Mass Policy Feedback Effects" by Brian Hamel (Brian Hamel). #APSRNewIssue cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Bob Stein was a wonderful friend and mentor. Working with him taught me so much — not just about political science, but about finding joy in everything you do. news.rice.edu/news/2025/rice…