\(\star\)Research
Featured in Niskanen Center Science of Politics Podcast: How Voters
Judge Congress (May 5, 2021)\(\star\)
\(\star\)Research
Featured in Roll Call: `More activists should go work for Congress,
these staffers say’ (June 22, 2021)\(\star\)
Abstract: Do citizens weigh the ideological nature of
collective representation provided by Congress when assessing the job
performance of their national legislature? While recent aggregate-level
work suggests that congressional approval rises when Congress responds
to the ideological preferences of the mass public, individual-level
models posit that approval is a function of partisanship or valence
considerations, with little consideration for policy. I fill this
disconnect between two lines of research by presenting a model arguing
that citizens weigh the ideological representation provided by their
Congress in the face of two contrasting options of collective
ideological representation in the responsible party government era.
Using cross-sectional and panel survey data which allow for scaling
citizens and the congressional parties in the same ideological space, I
find that majority co-partisans and citizens closer in ideological
proximity to the governing majority are more likely to approve of
Congress. I also find that this the relationship between ideological
proximity and approval is independent of partisanship. These findings
have implications for the capacity of citizens to assess the collective
representation of the chief policy-making institution of their national
government.
Quarterly Job Approval of the U.S. Congress, 1974-2016
The “Collective Congress” on the Ballot? A Voter & Aggregate
Level Analysis of Collective Responsibility in Congressional
Elections
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in Congress & the Presidency (2020) \(\star\)
Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
Abstract: The traditional view among scholars is that
voters do not weigh congressional job performance in their congressional
voting decisions. Recent work challenges this notion and provides
evidence that congressional job approval matters at the ballot box.
However, scholars are divided as to which party benefits from positive
job approval ratings. Moreover, the literature is unclear regarding the
conditions under which voters hold individual candidates accountable for
the collective performance of Congress. Analyzing individual and
aggregate level data, this study produces several key findings: (1)
assessments of congressional job performance are directly tied to the
electoral standing of the majority party; (2) positive approval ratings
raise the level of support for majority party candidates among minority
partisans and those closest to the minority in ideological proximity;
(3) majority party incumbents gain more from congressional approval than
non-incumbents and suffer less of a loss from congressional disapproval;
(4) the impact of congressional approval on majority party fortunes is
conditioned by how cohesive the majority party is. These findings
provide a clearer narrative of how collective accountability works in
congressional elections and the incentives for majority and minority
party behavior in the contemporary Congress.
Distribution of Ideological Divergence between District &
Partisan Medians
Ideological Cross-Pressures or Random Error? An Analysis of
Spatially Incorrect Voting in the U.S. House & U.S. Senate
with Joe Zamadics, PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published at the Journal of Legislative Studies \(\star\)Working
Manuscript Publication Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
Abstract: Theoretical and empirical models of
congressional voting assumes that legislators vote with the sole purpose
to move policy closer to their ideologically ideal point, with the most
prominent being the NOMINATE model. While NOMINATE correctly classifies
the vast majority of votes cast by members of Congress, a significant
number of votes are misclassified and coded as spatial error. The
literature on congressional voting assumes this error to be random and
idiosyncratic across members. We dispute this conventional notion and
argue that spatial error in congressional is not random, but rather
systematic across members. We present a theory positing that spatial
error is more likely on roll-call votes tackling salient policy issues
and among members representing districts with greater ideological
divergence between the median voter and the member’s primary election
constituency. Using Aldrich-McKelvey scaling to place legislators and
constituencies in the same ideological common space, we find support for
our theory. We attribute this finding to the greater electoral
uncertainty faced by ideological moderates and members representing
districts with greater ideological divergence between key
constituencies. Our findings have implications for the NOMINATE model,
the nature of spatial error in legislative voting, and the electoral
cross-pressures faced by legislators.
Item Characteristic Curves of Latent COVID-19 Activity
Comfort
The Interactive Effects of Scientific Knowledge & Gender on
COVID-19 Social Distancing Compliance
with Sam Fuller, PhD
Candidate, Political Science, University of California, Davis
Christopher Hare,
Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of California,
Davis
& Sara
Kazemian, PhD Candidate, Political Science, University of
California, Davis
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in Social Science Quarterly (2020) \(\star\)Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
Abstract: With the onset of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in
the United States, state governments and the federal administration were
forced to craft social distancing recommendations advising the general
public on how they could combat the transmission of the deadly virus.
These recommendations, and sometimes orders, advised against many daily
social activities such as visiting family members, restaurant dining,
and sporting event attendance. Adherence to and support of these
measures has been varied, with many flouting mask and group-gathering
recommendations/orders. This has reduced the effectiveness of these
measures and lead to virus resurgences across the U.S. In this research
note, we examine the role scientific knowledge and gender play in
influencing citizens’ comfort and risk perceptions regarding social
distancing recommendations and orders. In both the general population
and within parties, we find that women with high scientific knowledge
are much less comfortable breaking social distancing guidelines than
their male counterparts and women with lower scientific knowledge. These
findings shed light on how both knowledge and gender interact to drive
(non)compliance with government policies during a public health crisis
in an increasingly polarized America.
Bivariate Relationship between Subnational Racial Resentment &
GOP Vote Shares
Racial attitudes & political cross-pressures in nationalized
elections: The case of the Republican coalition in the Trump
era
with Isaac Hale, Associate Instructor, University of California,
Davis
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in Electoral Studies (2020) \(\star\)Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
\(\star\)Research featured in The Sacramento
Bee (July 19, 2019): White Racial Resentment is a Winning Republican
Strategy, this Political Scientist Says\(\star\)
\(\star\)Research featured in The Sacramento
Bee (July 24, 2019): Trump’s strategy of racial resentment won’t work in
California\(\star\)
\(\star\)Research featured in Roll Call
(August 12, 2019): California Republican backtracks, but episode could
foreshadow his 2020 strategy\(\star\)
\(\star\)Research
featured in Political Science Now APSA Blog (July 22, 2020): Will Trump
& Congressional Republicans Benefit from White Racial Attitudes in
2020?\(\star\)
Abstract: While scholars have found that Trump was able
to capitalize on the racial attitudes of white voters, it is less clear
how these racial attitudes influence vote-choice across partisan and
ideological cleavages in the electorate. It is also unclear whether
racial attitudes affected voting at the congressional level or electoral
outcomes at the aggregate level. Using a novel measure of racial
attitudes at the subnational level and survey data, we make three clear
findings: (1) Trump and Republican congressional candidates benefited
from racial attitudes both at the aggregate level and among white
voters, (2) this electoral benefit for Republicans persisted during the
2018 midterm elections, and (3) the effect of attitudes on vote-choice
did not significantly vary across partisan and ideological cleavages in
the white electorate. Our findings suggest that, even during the era of
highly nationalized and partisan elections, racial attitudes are still a
mechanism by which Republicans can win significant electoral support
among Democrats and relatively liberal voters in the white electorate.
These findings have implications for the growing salience of race in the
Republican electoral coalition.
Item Characteristic Curves of Latent Scientific Knowledge
The Conditional Effects of Scientific Knowledge & Gender on
Support for COVID-19 Government Containment Policies in a Partisan
America
with Sam Fuller, PhD
Candidate, Political Science, University of California, Davis
& Christopher
Hare, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of
California, Davis
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in Politics & Gender (2020) \(\star\)Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
\(\star\)Research
accepted for Politics & Gender as part of the Cambridge Coronavirus
Collection\(\star\)
\(\star\)Research
reprinted as part of the Public Health Emergency COVID-19 Initiative,
U.S. National Library of Medicine: National Institutes of
Health\(\star\)
Abstract: With the onset of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in
the United States, many state and local governments were forced to
implement necessary policies to contain transmission of the deadly
virus. These policies ranged from closing most businesses to more
controversial proposals, such as postponing primary elections. In this
research note, we examine the role scientific knowledge and gender
played in citizen perceptions of these virus containment policies both
in the general population and among partisans. We find that while a
gender gap persists in scientific knowledge, both in the general
population and within the parties, women are generally more likely to
use this knowledge to inform their policy views on necessary government
action during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings shed light on how
knowledge and gender intersect to drive support for government
intervention during the time of a severe public health crisis in a
partisan America.
Average Country World Wide Web Information Networks, 9/1/2015 -
1/30/2017
Diachronic Equivalence: An Examination of the International News
Network
with George
Barnett, Distinguished Professor of Communications, University of
California, Davis
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in Social Network Analysis & Mining (2019) \(\star\)Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
Abstract: Barabási (2014) argues that a significant
proportion of nodes can be randomly removed from any scale-free network
without it breaking apart. Gao, Barzel and Barabási (2016) suggest that
three additional properties of networks, density, heterogeneity and
symmetry, facilitate their ability to adjust their activities to retain
functionality in times of stress. Barnett and Jiang (2016) examined the
World Wide Web and found that while there are changes in the use of
individual websites in this scale-free network due to weekly cycles in
viewing specific websites, extreme events as well as other social and
cultural events, the overall network is remarkably stable. This paper
suggests an additional property, the structural equivalence of nodes
that facilitates network stability. Further, it differentiates between
two forms of equivalence, synchronous or structural equivalence, and
diachronic equivalence, which indicates that two nodes’ position in a
network change over time in a similar manner. A subset of the World Wide
Web, the international news network is examined to demonstrate these
notions. Daily data on the use of the world’s 44 most frequently visited
news websites by 118 countries were mined over the 17 month period
September 1, 2015 to January 30, 2017, to create a longitudinal two-mode
network (countries and websites). The results suggest that individual
structurally and diachronic equivalent nodes may be removed from both
the international and website networks without impacting how the network
changes over time.
Effect of Incumbency on Vote Share by Seat Type &
Polarization Level, 1920-2016

The Conditioning Role of Polarization in U.S. Senate Election
Outcomes: A Direct-Election Era & Voter-Level Analysis
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in Electoral Studies (2019) \(\star\)Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
\(\star\)Research featured in Invited LegBranch Blog
Post: The National Tide Falls Short in the U.S. Senate (March 19,
2019)\(\star\)
\(\star\)Research
featured at FiveThirtyEight: Why The President’s Party Almost Always Has
A Bad Midterm (January 3, 2022)\(\star\)
Abstract: Recent work finds that a decline in the incumbency
advantage coincides with the rise of partisanship as a determinant of
congressional electoral outcomes. While this work updates our view of
congressional elections, it is unclear if this holds in the more
candidate-centered and high-information electoral context of the U.S.
Senate. In this paper, I address these two considerations by evaluating
a theory positing that polarization conditions the influence of
incumbency and partisanship as Senate election determinants. Using data
on the entire direct-election Senate era and survey data, this paper
finds that: (1) polarization provides a partisan advantage for
candidates running in states in which they are members of the partisan
majority and (2) polarization positively conditions the incumbency
advantage for Senators representing states that favor the other party.
These findings suggest that Senators may still successfully cultivate a
personal brand in the face of growing ideological differences between
the parties.
Distribution of 2016 Federal Election Candidate Positions
The Distorting Effects of Racial Animus on Proximity Voting in
the 2016 Elections
with Isaac Hale, PhD Candidate, University of California,
Davis
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in Electoral Studies (2019) \(\star\)Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
\(\star\)Research
featured in The New York Times (Feb. 27, 2019): The Deepening
`Racialization’ of American Politics\(\star\)
\(\star\)Research
featured in Pacific Standard (April 8, 2019): Trump’s Racist Remarks
Helped Boost Down-Ballot GOP in 2016\(\star\)
Abstract: While the use of racial appeals by the 2016
Trump campaign is indisputable, researchers are actively debating their
precise role in influencing voter behavior in the election. We seek to
expand upon existing research which finds that racial animus electorally
benefited the Trump campaign. We examine to what extent those benefits
redounded to GOP candidates down-ballot and whether racial animus
distorted ideological proximity voting in the 2016 election. We find
that racial animus among voters helped Republicans at multiple ballot
levels and that higher levels of racial animus distorted correct
proximity voting among voters ideologically closest to the Democratic
candidate. Our findings suggest that high salience campaign appeals on
race at the presidential level can influence elections for the House and
Senate. We also provide evidence that the process of racial partisan
realignment is incomplete, as some white voters still vote incongruously
with their ideology due to racial animus.
Interactive Effect of Obstruction & Partisan Majority on
Senator Voteshares

The Member Level Determinants & Consequences of Party
Legislative Obstruction in the U.S. Senate
with Joe Zamadics, PhD Candidate, University of Colorado,
Boulder
\(\star\)Manuscript
Published in American Politics Research (2019) \(\star\)Publication
Link \(\star\)Manuscript Data
Materials
\(\star\)Research featured in Invited London School
of Economics United States Politics & Policy Blog Post (March 14,
2019)\(\star\)
Abstract: Are Senators cross-pressured by party
influence and constituent demands on procedural votes? We present a
theory positing that Senators are indeed cross-pressured between these
two demands and that they anticipate an electoral cost for their
procedural voting record. In an analysis of Senate procedural votes
since the 92nd Congress, we find that procedural votes are salient to
voters and important to party leaders. Using a new spatial measure of
obstruction preference, we demonstrate our finding three ways. First,
obstruction preferences have become more polarized as the Senate
experiences more intense legislative obstruction. Second, electorally
vulnerable members are most likely to break from their party on
procedural votes. Third, we find that voters electorally reward majority
party Senators that break from their party and behave like minority
party obstructionists. Our findings suggest that, unlike the House,
Senate procedural votes are largely indistinguishable from substantive
votes and are electorally salient.