Latest Twitter Threads by @johnmsides on Thread Reader App

Nov 7 • 4 tweets • 2 min read

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.

2) It exaggerates how much voters vote based on policy. So much polisci shows how difficult that is, and how in fact it's often the reverse: voters choose polices based on whatever their preferred candidate is advocating.

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Oct 11 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

Graphs like this from the FT makes you think that only white Democrats are on the left or have moved left on immigration or racial issues.

That is simply not true.

The comparison of race+politics groups (white Ds or white progressives) to only racial groups (Hispanic, Black) is the issue here.

In reality, white Ds have moved left on racial issues but are not as racially liberal as Black Ds. Black Ds have moved left too!

Apr 9 • 4 tweets • 2 min read

Not much "racial realignment" in these new Pew numbers.

And the youngest voters are not any more Republican despite weak support for Biden in the early trial heats.

Mar 11 • 6 tweets • 2 min read

The story is more complex than these graphs suggest. Let's take Black partisanship and do 3 things:

1) Crucially, separate ANES and CES surveys

2) Calculate the % Democratic within and without independents who lean Democratic

3) No smoothing. Let's see the raw data.

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1767198799934427371

Here's the graph. First, the "gold standard" ANES shows no secular decline in black partisanship. All of the decline is in the CES.

Moreover, the % Democratic is routinely higher in the ANES than the CES, especially if you include leaners.

Oct 21, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read

In advance of election night, I think it's useful to calibrate expectations to the fundamentals, not to polls or vibes.

So, a good calibration:

House: Dems lose ~40-45 seats
Senate: Dems lose 1-3 seats

Anything significantly less = Dem over-performance. Here's why. A standard model for House elections is Gary Jacobson's: presidential approval, income trends, and # seats controlled by the president's party.

Forecast: Democrats lose 45 seats.

dropbox.com/s/95s7hip8bzg5…

Mar 31, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read

Here's what I think would move the popularism debate along. We need some specific testable claims, because I see different versions of the idea circulating.

1) The popularity of the president's public positions is associated with their approval rating and reelection.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1509512012589588483

2) The popularity of positions associated with a political party (fairly or not) affect the popularity of all of a party's officeholders.

(e.g., this is the claim implicit in the idea that "defunding the police" cost Democrats in 2020)

Jan 7, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read

From a survey of Republicans conducted in January 2020, about one year ago:

51% agree that "The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it." 47% agree that "Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done."

Nov 20, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read

This is an interesting notion by @jbouie, but some challenges for "the stimulus helped Trump" theory are:

nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opi… (1) Based on the historical relationship between the change in disposable income and presidential election outcomes, Trump vastly *under*-performed.

Oct 5, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read

New paper from @vavreck, @cwarshaw, and me: "The Effect of TV Advertising in US Elections."

Here is a brief thread.

chriswarshaw.com/papers/adverti… We estimate the effects of ads in:

5 presidential elections
276 U.S. Senate elections
176 gubernatorial elections
1,655 U.S. House elections
and 157 other state-level elections

All from 2000-2016.

Sep 23, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read

I find the framing in this NY Times piece very odd. The notion is that GOP support for Trump's SCOTUS nominee reflects his "iron grip" on the party.

But, if anything, it's the opposite: the GOP's grip on Trump.

nytimes.com/2020/09/22/us/… Trump's ascendancy in the GOP depended on changing himself. He launched attacks on Obama, spoke on conservative media and CPAC, donated more to GOP candidates, endorsed Romney in 2012, etc. From Identity Crisis:

Sep 2, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read

Inspired by some recent pieces by @amyewalter and @jimtankersley, I dug into Donald Trump's economic approval numbers, which are typically higher than his overall approval numbers.

Here's what I found: washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/… About 10% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy but don't approve of Trump overall.

The challenge for Trump? They favor Biden by 41 points!

Jul 17, 2020 • 16 tweets • 8 min read

Pleased to announce the publication of a new @DemocracyFund research brief on public attitudes toward COVID, co-authored by my @VandyPoliSci colleague Cindy Kam and me.

Here's a link: voterstudygroup.org/publication/sy…

And now a thread on what we've found. We argue that public opinion about disease outbreaks can be understood as the intersection of biology and politics.

The story starts with Cindy's earlier research on public attitudes toward both the Ebola and Zika outbreaks: journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108…

Jun 3, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read

THREAD: This @MorningConsult survey experiment deserves more attention.

There are the expected partisan differences in support for protesting injustice.

But support drops -- especially among Republicans -- when black Americans are doing the protesting.

morningconsult.com/2020/06/01/flo…

It reminded me of a related experiment we described in Identity Crisis. Clinton voters and Trump voters don't differ much on whether "average Americans" have gotten less than they deserve.

They disagree on whether African Americans have gotten less than they deserve.

May 27, 2020 • 7 tweets • 4 min read

Asking people whether something will affect their vote -- a campaign event, an issue, whatever -- is basically worthless. We're not good at reporting the reasons for our choices or whether something will change our mind.

And, yes, I am subtweeting a poll about Dem VP picks. Some relevant scholarly literature on why we shouldn't ask people this type of survey question. First, Nisbett and Wilson's "Telling More than We Can Know" (psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi…)

May 26, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

Biden has been leading Trump among seniors since at least JULY 2019. So it's not just about COVID. New from @rp_griffin and me for @monkeycageblog:

washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

A brief thread. Here's the key graph, showing the trends in a Trump-Biden match-up over time. Younger voters have been moving away from Biden, but that's just bringing them to where they were in 2016.

May 7, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read

For journalists writing about the new Trump "Death Star" ad blitz, it's imperative to discuss the research showing how quickly the effects of presidential general election advertising wear off.

The impact of advertising in May on what happens in November is likely zero. You can see this paper by @vavreck, @seth_j_hill, et al. (…2-4c2c-85dc-8326dbe5039a.filesusr.com/ugd/74791f_c5f…) our our books on 2012 and 2016.

Apr 19, 2020 • 12 tweets • 2 min read

Do you know what are very popular? State and local restrictions to enforce social distancing and reduce coronavirus infections.

A thread with data based on, you know, representative samples of Americans. The data are from Nationscape surveys (voterstudygroup.org/nationscape) from March 19-26 and April 2-11.

The question is "Some state and local governments have taken certain actions in response to the coronavirus and are considering other actions. Do you support or oppose the following"

Apr 8, 2020 • 5 tweets • 3 min read

Surveys are now clearly showing an increase in (1) unfavorable views of Asian people and (2) the belief that China is an "enemy." New at @PostEverything from @rp_griffin, Michael Tesler, and me. Here's a brief thread.

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0… In the large samples (6000 per week) of Nationscape , the percent of Americans who rate Asians unfavorably is growing.

Parallel movement among Democrats and Republicans, at least until the last few weeks. (We don't see a similar shift in views of African Americans or Latinos.)

Mar 31, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

At @monkeycageblog, @rp_griffin and I dive into why Trump's approval bump isn't helping him much against Biden. washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

A story in three graphs, using the Nationscape data. First, views of the economy continue to plummet. They are now net negative even among Republicans.

Mar 26, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read

New from me @PostEverything: Trump has long been characterized as the "people's billionaire" but today most Americans don't think he cares about "people like me." washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0…

A thread. Let's start with the data. The survey questions are how much a politician cares about the wealthy, the middle class, the poor, and "people like me." Let's compare views of Romney and Obama in Nov 2012 to views of Trump, Biden, and Sanders now.

Mar 20, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read

New from @rp_griffin and me @monkeycageblog : "Americans have increasingly dismal views of the economy. But they don’t blame Trump." Here's a brief thread.

washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/… Using the Nationscape data, we chart a huge increase in economic pessimism in the last month -- including among Republicans.

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