The Science of Politics

Donald Trump's expansive executive action has been met with a flurry of court action, as Democratic officials and liberal interest groups challenge each action—with a lot of early success. Can liberals succeed in limiting Trump through the courts or are American courts an inevitably conservative institution? Paul Nolette finds that Democratic Attorneys General have banded together to fight Trump, building on successful action last time. They are able to select the venues and usually win standing, becoming key actors in limiting executive action. But Brian Highsmith finds that over the long run, judicial supremacy tends to advance conservative goals in the American system. Even if Democrats win in the courts now, that may allow the judiciary to develop a longer term constraint on government. 

Donald Trump has now unilaterally imposed huge global tariffs, upending the world economy. But we did get a preview of Trump's trade approach in his first term, allowing researchers to analyze the political consequences. Thiemo Fetzer finds that China, the EU, Canada, and Mexico reacted to the first term tariffs strategically, trying to hurt Trump's constituents. Omer Solodoch finds that the first term trade war announcement immediately hurt Trump politically, reducing approval and affecting voting intentions. They both say the new trade war is bigger, with political consequences likely to grow.

The 2nd Trump administration has begun tearing down the administrative state, firing thousands, cancelling contracts, and shuttering agencies. But they have also used the power of the state to ramp up summary deportations, crack down on universities, and threaten prosecutions of their political opponents. So is this the culmination of Republican efforts to scale back government or a sign that they just want to redirect its goals? Nicholas Jacobs and Sidney Milkis find that we have overestimated conservative efforts to reduce the size and scope of government and underestimated their usage of the enlarged state to pursue conservative goals.

We have the parties that we said we wanted: they compete over extensive policy programs, with voters making decisions among clear issue position alternatives. But how did they get here and have they now gone too far? Katherine Krimmel finds that the American parties became extensively programmatic as they lost vestiges of clientelism and became national parties after federal growth and civil rights. But Trump may be changing the nature of the party system. And running on the issues may not be all it's cracked up to be.

Five years after the COVID lockdowns, the performance of government and policy experts is not looking great in retrospect. Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee find that policymakers dispensed with years of pre-pandemic planning that suggested the tools used to fight COVID would not work. Experts did not sufficiently consider the costs of their preferred approaches and spoke publicly of consensus while privately admitting limited evidence. Policymakers and experts deterred alternatives and suppressed dissent, leaving us with today's increased distrust of health and political authorities. The second Trump administration is now empowering the skeptics and taking advantage of Americans' distrust of expertise. 

Courts are pausing dozens of Trump administration actions—from mass firings to agency shutdowns. But does the judiciary have a real enforcement mechanism? Will public faith in the courts mean Trump faces consequences in elections and public esteem or will that faith wilt as the judiciary is just seen as another partisan institution? Amanda Driscoll, Michael Nelson, and Jay Krehbiel find that Americans have faith in the rule of law and respond well to courts that invalidate executive action—and partisanship does not seem to interfere. It's a potentially optimistic story about the role that courts and public opinion may play in limiting democratic backsliding. But they all see risks in practice, as dozens of judges use arcane rules to limit the president while Republicans attack judicial branch oversight.

While promising mass deportation and an immigration crackdown, Donald Trump gained Latino support in 2024, just as he had in 2020. Why do some Latinos support anti-immigration policies and candidates? Loren Collingwood finds that many Latinos separate themselves from recent immigrants as atypical of their group. But does that explain recent Democratic politician moves? He also finds that legislators respond to local interest groups, not only district opinion. And he has other research showing where sanctuary city policies matter and where they do not. Even with some support, he still expects a backlash to Trump policies.

American interest groups are increasingly lining up behind the Democratic or Republican Party and trying to build coalitions within those parties rather than across them. But historically, that has not been the most effective method to bring policy change. Jesse Crosson finds that interest groups are increasingly taking positions on issues outside their areas of expertise in an effort to unite their partisan coalitions. They are facing pressure to toe the party line, but it might prevent the broader coalitions they need to build to pass legislation.

How did Americans become politically divided on culture war topics like guns, abortion, women's role, gay rights, and environmentalism? The common story is that it took polarizers from the top: politicians and activists associated with each party moved the public to their respective sides. But Neil O'Brian finds that the culture war followed America's racial realignment  because racial attitudes were always tied to other cultural issue views in the American public, well before they were emphasized by the parties. Once the parties divided on race, they brought culturally liberal voters to the Democrats and culturally conservative voters to the Republicans. And that combination of issue attitudes and alignments largely mirrors patterns across the democratic world.

Trump has promised to remake the federal bureaucracy in his own image and go after his political opponents and the media in his 2nd administration. But there are signals that public protest and civil society mobilization are subdued. How much do we have to fear further democratic backsliding under Trump 2? Brendan Nyhan finds expert consensus on many reasons to be concerned but also evidence that experts were too pessimistic about the likelihood of bad actions the first time.

When Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, an outpouring of excitement among Indian Americans foretold potential gains for Democrats among Asian Americans, the fastest growing minority group. But Asian Americans neither turned out in record numbers nor moved toward Democrats. In fact, Indian Americans moved toward Trump. Janelle Wong has followed the trajectory and diversity of Asian-American voters. She does not see a realignment in the making but does see significant moves rightward and divergence across country of origin subgroups. This adds to the evidence of racial dealignment, but also the complexity of American racial categories.

President Trump has made his picks for his second term cabinet more quickly and the transition is more organized and ready for Executive Branch action. Will hopes and fears of an executive reinvention be born out or will the difficulties of the first term show their face again? David Lewis finds that Trump's first term choices did not go over well with career civil servants but that there was not as much change as sometimes implied. Heath Brown went in-depth into the last transition from Trump to Biden and foresees problems ahead from chaotic transitions and the major ambitions of Trump's second term appointees. They are both looking ahead to more radical shifts in Trump's second term, with more appointees at odds with the agencies they are directing.

Analysts previewing a second Trump administration say he will now have unchecked power, with compliant administrators and courts. But there is a long history of presidents using executive actions to claim more power than they have—with the bureaucracy surprisingly resilient to oversight and reinvention. Kenneth Lowande finds that unilateral presidential action is often used for credit claiming rather than substantive policy change. The charade works in the short term, generating media coverage and group support, but it may undermine public faith in the long term due to unmet expectations. Trump's first term was full of executive actions with media frenzy that amounted to much less in practice.

In this live episode of The Science of Politics, panelists examined the class, race, and gender dynamics that shaped the 2024 election. The panel features Tom Edsall, Amanda Iovino, Patrick Ruffini, and Ruy Teixeira. Did the election cement a class realignment of American politics? Did Republicans peel off minority voters based on changing perceptions of the GOP as a working-class party? And how did these dynamics interact with the growing gender divide in voting?

Polls missed the 2016 election outcome and did even worse in 2020 on the margin, underestimating Donald Trump again. Should we believe the polls this time? What have pollsters changed? Have they overcorrected? In an era of one percent response rates for phone surveys and opt-in Internet panels, should we even talk about them in the same way? Michael Bailey finds that our theories about random sampling don't really apply anymore. And weighting with larger samples does not solve our non-response biases. Brian Schaffner finds that weighting on several factors has increased, likely helping pollsters avoid undercounting Trump supporters. They both say survey research is important to get right but that the solutions are not obvious.

Pre-election polls show Black voters moving toward Donald Trump in 2024, even though he is now running against Kamala Harris. And Trump did gain a bit of margin among Black voters in 2020 compared to 2016, though he still loses nine out of ten. Should Democrats fear more attrition among Black voters this year or is it just a mirage from bad polling? Christopher Towler finds that Democrats made a lot of gains among Black voters this year by switching from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. He says the gender divide may grow this year, but he thinks Black voters will come home to the Democrats. But Idan Franco finds that some Black voters support Trump because of their racial attitudes, not in spite of them. In other research, he finds similar trends among Hispanic voters, where immigration attitudes make some more likely to support Trump.

In the last 12 years, academic language about structural inequality made its way to media and popular discourse, leading to conservative critiques of “wokeness.” But how much really changed beneath the surface in our elite institutions? Musa Al-Gharbi finds that wokeness has peaked after it was the product of socio-economic trends in the professions. But he says it was mostly surface-level, visible in social norms that distracted from underlying economic realities.

Presidential campaigns narrow the battleground to an ever-smaller group of potentially pivotal states—where they spend most of their time and money in the race to 270 electoral votes. How do presidential campaigns envision and select their paths to victory? And how much do these decisions matter? Daron Shaw takes us inside the presidential campaigns from 1952 to 2020, with data and analysis from the campaigns themselves. He finds that calcified partisanship and campaign finance liberalization have moved us into a micro-targeted era, with a smaller group of mutually agreed battleground states. But resource allocation decisions can still make enough of a difference to tip the balance in several recent elections--and maybe 2024 as well.

College-educated voters are moving toward the Democrats, with the less educated moving toward the Republicans. Will 2024 continue the pattern or reverse the trend? What will that mean for the culture war that has engulfed the nation and refocused the political parties? David Hopkins breaks down the consequences of the diploma divide, from woke business to the COVID wars. This is not just about polarized sides moving apart: it's about the victory of educated liberals in the culture war and the backlash that has evened party competition while transforming the Democrats.

After years of signs that the American parties were institutionally weak and vulnerable to takeover, Democratic Party elites coalesced to quickly replace their presidential candidate. But a longer historical sweep suggests it will not be a quick return to parties' traditional roles. Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld find that Democrats and Republicans have become hollow shells, unrooted in civic organizations, with Republicans captured by extremism and Democrats ineffectual. Their weaknesses, they say, are the source of our political discontent.

Vice President Kamala Harris has replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. And the conversation has immediately turned to race and gender. What do we know about how Black and Asian women candidates are treated by parties and voters? How does the Harris experience compare to others running for office? What does it mean for her ability to win in November and inspire a new generation of more diverse leaders? Jamil Scott has researched the unique features of Black women candidacies, from the decision to run to raising money to adapting to stereotypes. And she has also studied the increasing racialization of American elections. She tells me the typical tropes and conversations came immediately to this campaign.

In the midst of a harrowing political campaign, can Americans tone down their partisanship and unify around their common American values? Matthew Levendusky finds that Americans misperceive those in the other party and can improve their views if they are reminded of our shared national identity. From the Olympics to the 4th of July, some moments remind us that we have more in common than we may think. But reduced animosity also requires knowing real people on the other side of our divides and building cross-partisan friendships.

Democrats and Republicans rely on partisan think tanks for policy proposals, along with the numbers and findings that justify them. How did think tank research reach a central place in our politics and how influential are they? E. J. Fagan finds that partisan think tanks like the Heritage Foundation helped polarize the congressional issue agenda and debate, replacing the non-partisan expertise that Congress used to rely on. Conservative think tanks are gearing up for a possible second Trump administration while Biden's policy agenda remains reliant on the liberal side of the think tank establishment.

The impact of racial attitudes in American politics isn't just about the presence or absence of anti-Black prejudice. Some White Americans say they are highly sympathetic to the plight of Black Americans. Are they just placing Black Lives Matter signs in their yards or does it translate into political views and actions? Jennifer Chudy finds that many White Americans, especially liberal Democrats, have sympathy that translates into support for redistributive social welfare policies and opposition to punitive criminal justice policies. There is a growing and important left side of Americans' racial views.

We have overestimated the influence of partisan misinformation during political campaigns. But that doesn't mean we're well-informed. Americans know little about important public policy issues and they "know" things that aren't so. Emily Thorson finds that Americans concoct information about current policy to match what they think they know. It's not that they are fed misinformation but that the media report little about the details of current policy, leaving voters to make up the facts. Correcting this misinformation about existing policy can make a difference and help Americans evaluate new proposals for policy change.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr is polling higher than prior third party candidates and his supporters could make the difference in a close election. Americans say they want a third party, but is this what they had in mind? Jonathan Cervas finds that in 2020, third parties actually took more potential votes from Republicans than Democrats. Victor Wu finds that lots of Americans say they want a third party. But most partisans seeking third options clearly favor their side's issue positions. There's not much of a constituency for a grand unity ticket in the middle.

Despite popular resistance in each party, Congress just reached wide bipartisan agreement on military aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan along with a forced sale of TikTok. Even in a polarized age, Congress has managed bipartisan votes on controversial issues in an election year. Jordan Tama finds that bipartisan coalitions are quite common in congressional consideration of foreign policy—from overlapping competing alliances to broad support for internationalism, Congress is far less polarized on foreign policy than domestic policy. William Bendix finds that legislators are consistent in how they sponsor foreign policy bills based on their ideological views even across administrations of different parties. He also finds that hawks usually lead and win congressional votes over doves, regardless of who is president.

Joe Biden is facing re-election shepherding an unsteady economy through high interest rates. Is this Democrats' bad economic luck repeating itself? Joe Stone finds that Democratic presidents have regularly expanded economies at the beginning of their terms but Republicans benefit from expanded economies leading up to the election. And partisan misalignment with the Federal Reserve also dampens economic performance. William Clark finds that the Fed raises interest rates as elections approach under Democratic presidents and lowers them for Republican presidents. And the Fed is more responsive to inflation under Democratic presidents. They both say the historical patterns may help explain why Biden finds himself in a more difficult position.

Our jobs shape our politics, including whether we run for office and which side of the political spectrum makes us feel most comfortable. Just as we are polarizing geographically, even our workplaces are now more likely to be filled with those who agree with us about politics. And our politicians come from these workplaces, often taking the specific concerns of their occupations with them. Max Kagan finds that you are most likely to encounter fellow partisans in your workplaces, partly because metro areas, occupations, and industries are politically homogeneous, and partly because we select into workplaces that share our politics. Jack Landry finds that state legislators bring their occupational concerns with them to legislating, shaping their committee assignments, campaign contributions, and personal financial interests. They both say it's a complicated causal chain: we may segregate our work interests because of factors related to politics but we could also be socialized into the norms and interests of the places where we work.

Congress is fearful of TikTok's influence, but America's young people increasingly see it as a key platform for learning about and spreading political ideas. Will TikTok get young people engaged in the 2024 election or serve as another distraction? Neta Kligler-Vilenchik finds that young people embody an expressive citizenship, where you should speak out if you see injustice, and have found TikTok to be a fruitful platform. But she doubts that older politicians have figured out how to use it for effective persuasion. Richard Fox finds that TikTok users are liberal and more active, online and offline. But they take politics less seriously. He sees the same complaints about media change that scholars have been making for generations: we're favoring shorter, less substantive, and emotional clips over real learning. They both say we should be skeptical of TikTok remaking politics but that we should listen to young people, who see real change.

The opioid crisis has not abated, but so far policy has remained far less punitive than for prior drug epidemics. Is that because it has been characterized and seen as a “white” drug problem? Could it take a more punitive turn if its connotations change? Tanika Raychaudhuri finds that sympathetic media coverage makes Whites more supportive of treatment over punitive policies for Black and White users, but less so for Black users. Justin de Benedicts-Kessner finds that White and Black Americans are more sympathetic when they see opioid users who look like themselves. Users who got into opioids through prescribed drugs see the least blame.

We are headed toward a replay of 2020, with the oldest candidates ever nominated for president. How much does candidate age matter in elections and how do voters judge older and younger options? If voters are disappointed with older candidates, why do they keep electing a gerontocracy? Jennifer Wolak finds that voters do stereotype older and younger candidates but not to the disadvantage of older options. But she also finds that older members of Congress have lower approval ratings. Semra Sevi studied the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, finding that bringing age to voters' attention did not affect their electability assessments. But in other research, she finds that younger voters prefer younger candidates globally. They both say our older candidates are the product of the system, not the voters.

COVID brought expansions of social welfare programs and increased flexibility. But many of the changes expired. Now Congress is considering a bit of a revival of the child tax credit expansion, but recipients of traditional welfare programs won't see equivalent gains. Did policymakers learn the right lessons from the successes and failures of COVID-era expansions? Carolyn Barnes finds that remote appointments helped recipients but that some program changes confused them. She says we're back to a period of retrenchment but administrators are trying to adapt when they have incentives to do so. Mariely Lopez-Santana finds that support for the child tax credit expansion was not as high as for other programs because families were not perceived as that deserving. Even recipients were not converted to program advocates.

With the prospect of a second emboldened Trump administration on offer, the administrative state is under attack. How well did the bureaucracy deal with Trump appointees? Was there really a resistance in a "deep state"? And how much are career civil servants affected by chaos and turnover in the political class that sit above them? Jaime Kucinskas finds limited and ineffectual resistance of administrators under Trump, even among those alarmed by his actions, with employees still highly committed to the goals of their agencies. Amanda Rutherford finds that upper-level bureaucrats actually report higher satisfaction when they face political vacancies and they are less likely to want to leave. That suggests chaos at the top may not lead to wholesale degradation.

Are political elites in bubbles, out of touch with the American public, not recognizing how their views and conditions are not reflective of most people's experience? Prior research found that elites tend to overestimate conservative policy positions in the American public, but there are wider misperceptions across the political spectrum. Alexander Furnas finds that unelected political elites—from government officials to lobbyists to media figures—all assume that public opinion more closely matches their own opinions than it really does. Adam Thal finds that politicians overestimate the level of financial struggles facing constituents. But correcting those misperceptions does not change their opinions.

After a year of minimal lawmaking, the public is disappointed with Congress. And the members don't seem very happy either, but they are not changing their behavior. How much has Congress deteriorated and why? Alex Theodoridis has a new survey of former members of Congress to explore their insights on what ails Congress. We discuss January 6th and polarization and their favorite presidents and leaders from the past. The former Republicans seem to recognize their party's plight and everyone sees dysfunction.

Voters are upset about disarray at the US-Mexico border and the increase in illegal crossings under President Biden. But they also reacted negatively to former president Trump's crackdowns. In both ways, immigration has become more important in our politics, making it more like Europe. Ernesto Tiburcio finds that flows of unauthorized migrants into the US have moved Americans and local governments in a conservative political direction. Areas that have seen more unauthorized flows start voting more Republican and redirect expenditures away from services and toward enforcement. But the backlash may run both ways. In Europe, Alexander Kustov finds that radical-right party success has softened views of immigrants and immigration. But his work also finds that anti-immigration voters prioritize the issue more than those who favor immigration.

Despite relatively strong economic data, the public is sour, judging President Biden poorly and putting him even or below former President Trump in early polling. How will polls and economic assessments evolve as we approach the 2024 election? Robert Erikson finds that early polls are not predictive but that presidents will eventually be judged by their economic standing. He's co-produced some of the most important scholarship on using polls to predict elections and understanding how citizens judge the president based on economic expectations.

Courts have overruled key policy changes from President Biden acting alone. But Republicans are gearing up to enact a suite of policy changes on Day 1 of a potential new administration, reigniting fears of an imperial presidency. Jon Rogowski finds that presidents act unilaterally quite often, beyond executive orders to include a lot of other tools, especially under divided government. But Dino Christenson finds that significant executive actions are scarce because the president can be constrained by Congress and the courts through the potential reaction of the American public.

Even with low approval, President Biden is still a big fundraising draw. In fact, presidents spend lots of time fundraising and the campaign is now year-round. And Biden has big competition: former President Trump never stopped fundraising or campaigning. Brendan Doherty finds that changes in campaign finance law have enabled a formidable presidential fundraising operation for the party as a whole. It's a window into the president's connection to their party and another sign that the divide between campaigning and governing has collapsed.

The United Auto Workers is gaining concessions and unions are generating public support with strikes this year. But Democrats have been losing voting share among union members and private industrial unions are still in decline. What dynamics gave rise to unions' Democratic support and is a resurgence possible? Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol investigate the political evolution of unions in Western Pennsylvania, a former heartland of Democratic union support. They find that union ties used to be an important part of working-class identities, social networks, and community life, guiding people toward Democratic support as part of a social consensus. But today, union members are more likely to socialize in gun clubs and less likely to retain Democratic ties and they see Democrats as socially distant and focused on cultural liberalism and college graduates.

Voters with college degrees are increasingly supporting Democrats, with Republicans now doing better among those without college—a big reversal in recent decades. Joshua Zingher finds that college-educated Americans are more liberal on social issues and that more educated Americans are moving furthest toward Democrats when surrounded by other educated people. White voters are flipping fastest by education but the trends are present across the electorate. Will Marble finds that white college graduates are now more liberal across economic, social, racial, and foreign policy issues. Less educated white voters have increased the importance they place on non-economic issues, polarizing the electorate on these issues.

Most people don't know who their state legislators are, much less what they are up to. So how do voters hold them accountable to public views? Steven Rogers finds that voters don't know enough about state politicians and most legislators are not facing competitive elections. Electoral mechanisms are not enough to keep them from diverging from the people they represent. But Chris Warshaw finds that state policy has grown more representative of state publics and more responsive to changes in opinion, only partly because elections change who is in power. State officials also follow public opinion in between elections and out of fear of electoral threat.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, local election officials became objects of unfounded conspiracy theories and attacks. But local clerks, even those elected in partisan elections, do make and implement key decisions about voting opportunities and election procedures. Do they tip the scales to favor their party? Daniel Thompson finds that electing a Democrat vs. a Republican as a county clerk does not affect subsequent election results or turnout. Thompson says reasonable concerns about the partisan effects of election law changes often do not materialize in real advantages.

In 2016, Donald Trump dominated media coverage in the race for the Republican nomination and he is on track to do so again this time. Does the media react to events and signals of public support, moving from one candidate to the next, or does it just focus on the frontrunner? And is media attention the main moving part in presidential primary campaigns? Zachary Scott finds that the media only sequentially highlights candidates in some nomination contests. But Trump dominated coverage more than others, in part due to his fearful and personalized rhetoric. Kevin Reuning finds that public interest follows rather than brings media coverage. Media attention led to increased poll support for Trump in 2016, but not for the other candidates. At least in 2016, the conventional story that Trump garnered outsize coverage and benefited seems correct.

Do our social media feeds polarize us, with algorithms that lure us into echo chambers and trap us with viral political content and misinformation? Andy Guess is part of four new papers that suggest these claims are overblown. The big social science collaboration with Meta found that reducing exposure to content shared by those that agree with you politically does not change political attitudes. Neither does reducing reshared content or changing algorithmic feeds to reverse chronological feeds. Some conservative Facebook users are in a bubble, but we may not be able to blame the algorithm for our polarization.

The hottest July on record is bringing big headlines, with scientists and activists hoping that Americans will notice the changing climate and call for policy action. But the prior record suggests no easy path from climate impacts to mobilization for change. Peter Howe finds that the effects of temperature shocks and natural disasters on public opinion are limited and inconsistent. The effects tend to be on basic awareness and are not as strong as initially suspected. Sam Rowan of Concordia University finds that temperature shocks and natural disasters do not seem to generate climate policy reforms at any level of government worldwide. Climate policy is slowly moving forward but not in response to local extreme weather.

American business used to be a common partner of Republicans. But the party claims that corporations have now gone “woke”, endorsing progressive values. Are companies really moving leftward? Eitan Hersh finds that business leaders perceive their companies moving toward Democratic elites and policy priorities, mostly due to internal demands. Soubhik Barari finds that companies are moving leftward in their social media posts and that public messaging is indicative of their internal behavior. They both say the woke capitalism narrative may be incomplete, but commentators are reacting to real change.

The Supreme Court made major conservative rulings this term but did not go as far as some expected. Are Court rulings out of step with public opinion? How much do they risk public backlash for moving against the public? Joe Ura finds that the Court provokes more backlash for moving in a too liberal direction than a too conservative direction. Stephen Jessee finds that the Court has been moving rightward but that the public is slow to notice. They both doubt the Court will provoke nearly as much backlash this year as with their abortion opinion in Dobbs. Image credit: iStock

High levels of political violence and low levels of institutional support suggest we are in the midst of an age of discord. What can we learn from the cycles of history about political disintegration and recovery? Peter Turchin predicted the tumult. He points to our large class of aspiring elites competing for power without advancing the living standards of most Americans. The past suggests that our choices are either a mostly unchallenged elite who moderate how much of the economic pie they capture or a prolonged conflict over power among overproduced elites.

Before primary voters get input, local party leaders recruit and select candidates to run for office. Their views produce and limit voters' choices. Even if voters might support candidates from diverse occupations or ethnicities, those candidates might never run if party leaders tap someone else. Michael Miller finds that county party chairs have different preferences than primary voters and party activists. They are very concerned with local ties and fear that their voters won't support Black or Latino candidates. They are critical to giving voters choices, even in places where partisan competition is weak, but their strategic discrimination constrains the candidate pool.