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Matt Grossmann Profile picture
Matt Grossmann
@MattGrossmann
Michigan State political scientist & @ippsr Director; @hookedlansing Co-owner; Pod: @niskanencenter Science of Politics; New book: Polarized by Degrees
2 subscribers
Aug 17, 2024 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Harris is doing much better than Biden & than pre-dropout polls. Some potential nudges to theory that may provoke:
1) candidate factors still matter & aren't just due to quality or moderation
2) how incumbent parties are judged economically is interpreted through the candidate 3) undecided & temporary 3rd party voters are real; many swing voters don't pay attention until it draws them
4) both mainstream & new media tenor matter, can switch quickly & then be self-reinforcing
5) when voters don't know much about candidates, impressions can change quickly
Jan 2, 2024 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Our new paper "Building Back with Partial Praise: Public Opinion on the Biden Agenda" for #SPSA2024


Build Back Better's modest popularity was mostly but not entirely a product of mixed views on its provisions. The Inflation Reduction Act was more popular.matthewg.org/IRA_BBB_Southe… The eventual law (IRA) was more popular than BBB while it was being debated. Describing BBB only with Biden & name was less popular than outlining its provisions, but not after voters evaluated provisions. Provision information did not affect IRA opinion.
matthewg.org/IRA_BBB_Southe…
Image
May 9, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Biden is not preparing to act alone & default is very unlikely, as is a long-term clean debt limit lift. Whatever the posturing, we are mostly waiting on the terms of Dems' concessions. That likely includes budget caps & more. We may get no hints today but structure is mostly set Potential but not probable hints today would include:
1) assignment of people to spearhead budget caps dissuasion
2) Dem comments on Rep concessions with varying degrees of disdain (eg non-starter vs we can work on)
3) talk of debt limit extension timing with further budget talks
Nov 17, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
State government policy becomes consistent with state public opinion as conservative & liberal states elect Republican & Democratic officials & as officials adjust policy to public opinion

Highly recommend Dynamic Democracy by @cwarshaw & @DevinCaughey
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book… State public opinion has grown more liberal over the long-term on racial issues, more liberal over the short term on cultural issues, & moved up & down on economic issues after a move right

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book… Image
Oct 12, 2022 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Highly recommend “The Bitter End” by @johnmsides @vavreck @CTausanovitch
on the 2020 election, a campaign where not much changed opinions despite lots of big news

hookedlansing.com/book/978069121…

Here is the relatively stable horse race & consistent Biden favorability advantage
1/n The primary race was, by the end, less stable. But Biden & Sanders drew most coverage & public support for most of the campaign. & Biden won with a similar coalition as Clinton: older & more partisan voters & Black voters

The Bitter End
hookedlansing.com/book/978069121…
2/n
Sep 23, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Americans increasingly perceive important differences between the parties

Fun new @electionstudies charts:
isr-anesweb.isr.umich.edu/ANES_Data_Tool… Americans increasingly perceive the Republican Party as the more conservative party but some Americans remain ideologically confused
isr-anesweb.isr.umich.edu/ANES_Data_Tool…
Sep 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 5 min read
When Information About Candidates Persuades Voters

New @NiskanenCenter #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with @j_kalla & @cantstopkevin

Voters still change their partisan vote choice in response to information & do take signals of candidate quality

niskanencenter.org/when-informati… @NiskanenCenter @j_kalla @cantstopkevin Testing 100s of messages on 1000s of voters in the 2020 presidential election, voters can be persuaded, especially with specific information about Biden:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
Even Republicans change their vote choice, suggesting that campaign information can shift votes:
Jul 25, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Nationalization made state policy respond more to party control, with legislators responding to activist donors over public opinion, parties copying electorally successful policies only in same-party states, & Rep states causing democratic backsliding

press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove… Not all policies moved rightward in Red states & leftward in Blue states; some policies like criminal justice were unresponsive to party control. But overall red & blue states diverged, making them more consistent with opinion in their states, but not responsive to opinion change
Jul 6, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
@whstancil High turnout is unrelated to partisan election outcomes: @whstancil The current congressional majority has historically high rates of both party unity & win rates in both chambers:
Jul 2, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If you think Democrats benefit from extreme Republican candidates (or vice versa), you should apply the same logic & evidence to the other side. If you think more extreme candidates hurt the other side but help your side, you’re just engaged in wishful thinking. The penalty for ideological extremism is real but small & shrinking. It doesn’t apply to only one party. If you expect large candidate effects in 2022, I would downgrade them. But you should expect some & they should run in the traditional direction toward experience & moderation
Jan 29, 2022 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Across Western democracies, the education divide slowly reversed where the educated now vote for parties of the left, even as the income divide (with rich voting for parties of the right) usually remained

From Political Cleavages & Social Inequalities:
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is… There is no cross-national increase in the age divide. But later generations have both been more educated & more likely to divide in their voting based on education (with educated younger voting left & non-educated younger voting right)
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
Jan 29, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Democratic partisanship increases with Republican extremism but decreases as Democrats move leftward, especially among Southern Whites. Simulations for 2020 suggest these strong negative effects of an aggressive leftward move

From Dynamic Partisanship:
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book… Their measure of left-right movement is perceptions of the party partitions on all ANES scales, which include racial & non-racial issue positions as well as ideology. At individual & aggregate levels, moving away from the perceived center loses adherents
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
Jan 29, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Racial resentment, from this alternative scale, stems from just-world orientation & legitimizing racial myths, not prejudice, producing retribution in support of maintaining the status quo

From: Racial Resentment in the Political Mind
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book… The traditional racial resentment scale has become more closely tied to views of liberals & conservatives over time & is not closely tied to views of whites

From: Racial Resentment in the Political Mind

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
Jan 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Most poli sci may agree with this. But when it comes to explaining federal policy change, policy historians tend to find plenty of important idiosyncratic individual-level factors. And structural factors don't explain as much policy change as we expect:
mattgrossmann.tumblr.com/artistsofthepo… But individual agency does not imply lack of structure. e.g. Manchin is the pivotal vote due to structural factors.

Most proposed policy changes fail. Structure often explains what is possible, but laws still require lots of individual actions & compromises to be enacted.
Jan 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Commenting on national politics is not efficacious compared to acting in local politics, even if you are most concerned with national outcomes & electoral rules
nytimes.com/2022/01/09/opi… But I don’t think Democratic uninvolvement in local politics is a huge issue; where they are most involved, it is often in NIMBYism & professional interests. There are people running in most winnable places & no great Republican advantage. Fundraising & volunteering are high
Dec 19, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Getting House & all but 1 same-party Senator on board with ~full plausible presidential agenda in 1st year is historically unusual progress. They won over the other key holdout. How did they do it? By rewriting half the bill to meet their (~ridiculous) terms. They can do it again Pelosi had unmeetable conflicting ~plausible demands & ~managed face saving. But Schumer? He spent a month arguing with the parliamentarian & claiming a quick vote. He didn’t prepare caucus & make the cuts. They miscalculated. They need Manchin & called the wrong bluff
Dec 19, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Don’t view this as final. They have to substantially cut the bill to meet Manchin’s terms (1.75 in ~permanent programs). Everyone else’s “red lines” are not real because they prefer a reduced bill to nothing; Manchin has the leverage, some others are slow to realize Manchin has been ~consistent since the July letter, actually come up 250B but clear he didn’t except sunsets to get to his ceiling. Many didn’t want to hear it or fell for others’ bluffs. “make him vote against it” doesn’t work with someone running to cameras to say he’s a no
Dec 2, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I loved “Dawn of Everything”

Here’s the best review I’ve found:
washingtonpost.com/outlook/after-…

You do have to see it as a political project combined with an early human history & popularization of anthropology, but it shows how we can learn by questioning biases of received history In How Social Science Got Better, I found that popularized debates make progress by bringing scholars with very different knowledge bases & assumptions into conversation. There is lots of overclaiming but it can clarify disputes. We also learn by thinking from different biases
Nov 30, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
We are building a new congressional data archive with member, district, & policymaking variables by district-year & state-year, modeled on @IPPSR’s Correlates of State Policy:
ippsr.msu.edu/public-policy/…

& @joshmccrain’s congressional data integrations:
congressdata.joshuamccrain.com/congressional_… We are currently cataloging available data, making crosswalks, converting/aggregating bill & policymaking data to district-year, updating, & compiling all district Census data. If you have relevant datasets, suggestions, or problem notes, please reach out. We would love your help
Nov 9, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Good video on how many all-Dem states & cities have restrictive housing, regressive taxes, & segregated education.

But state policy changes very slowly, only partly due to partisanship, & most policies have limited effects:
mattgrossmann.tumblr.com/redstateblues Overall, Democratic & Republican states don't perform differently across objective indicators, even though you can find polarized policies with real effects:
niskanencenter.org/do-democrats-a…

We consistently overestimate the party control -> policy change -> socio-economic outcomes path
Nov 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This confusion seems to be widespread. Thermostatic politics does not require Biden to change his policy proposals from the campaign. It also does not require close voter attention to policy detail. It just requires voters to see or expect a leftward change in policy from Trump eg voters asked in the Trump era whether they want more or less immigration or more or less health care spending are now being asked more or less from a new (or expected new) status quo. Fewer should now say more & more should say less, even if no one has changed ideal views