Thread by @CBHessick

I am very excited to announce that the Prosecutors and Politics Project @unc_law has just released a report on our national study of prosecutor elections: law.unc.edu/wp-content/upl…

@unc_law The report includes data from one election cycle in each of the more than 2,300 jurisdictions that elect their local prosecutors--that's a lot of elections, and so the report clocks in at more than 350 pages!

@unc_law A few key takeaways from the report:
First, the vast majority of prosecutor elections are uncontested. Indeed, of the 2,300+ elections that we studied, fewer than 700 presented voters with a choice of more than one candidate.

@unc_law This finding confirms groundbreaking research conducted by @wrightrf on prosecutor elections in a subset of states--namely that most incumbent prosecutors are reelected without facing a challenger. His research can be found here:
scholar.smu.edu/smulr/vol67/is…

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

@unc_law @wrightrf Second, whether a prosecutor election was contested seemed to depend on two important factors: (1) population, and (2) whether an incumbent was running for reelection. Large population districts and races without incumbents were more likely to have contested elections:

@unc_law @wrightrf The relationship between population and contested elections is important. Most prosecutors run unopposed, but most people live in high population districts. That means most people may have a choice in their prosecutor elections, even if most elections don't give that choice.

@unc_law @wrightrf Finally, this report would not have been possible if not for the support of @davidminpdx & @DeirdreGordon ; the amazing analysis skills of @MichaelLMorse ; and the hard work of many @unc_law students, including @jennycofer @mbaruch147 @AlisonRossi93