​​

 

“Connecting the Vote: Evaluating the effect of Peer Encouragement on Turnout in the 2020 Election” With Donald Green. 

​

Abstract: Friend-to-friend voter mobilization is a theoretically promising but understudied tactic. The present study reports the results of a randomized experiment designed to evaluate the effects of a distributed voter mobilization drive in which high school- and college-age "captains'' around the country encouraged turnout among people they know. Without stringent structures for captains to provide data about their friends, only half provide accurate information that can be matched to the voter file, leading to high rates of attrition. Still, we find little effect of friend-to-friend mobilization, despite past studies demonstrating large results. This study illustrates the limitations of friend-to-friend mobilization when conducted without close oversight of captains, during high salience elections, and among those captains whose friends are already likely to be politically active.

​

“Primary Concerns: The Lack of Forward-Looking Strategic Voting in Primary Elections"

​

Abstract: 

A few districts and states with competitive general elections now decide control of

congressional chambers. In these closely contested generals, the identities of parties’

nominees can win or lose the election. As such, we must think about elections in these

districts as a single, two-stage game beginning with the primary. Yet we do not know

whether primary voters think about primary elections as a first stage that affects the

second stage. Do primary voters vote strategically to give their party the best chance

of winning the general election? I use six experiments to investigate the willingness

of primary voters in both parties to vote for the most “electable” candidate. I find

that, though primary voters increase support for candidates they are told have the best

chance of winning the general election, they do not vote strategically. Instead, the entire

positive effect of treatment is derived from voters that have their preconceptions about

electability confirmed. When treatment confirms a voter’s perceptions about primary

candidates’ general election chances, treatment increases support for the more electable

candidate enormously. When treatment presents counter-attitudinal information about

electability, primary voters are less likely to support the more electable candidate.

That primary voters do not vote strategically runs counter to work on strategic voting

in general elections, and suggests novel limits on party elites’ ability to control their

chances in general elections and the influence of partisan concerns on voter behavior.

Future research will explore why primary voters do not switch support to the more

electable candidate: are primary voters spurred to change their preferred candidate’s

chances or are they motivated reasoners who reject counter-attitudinal information?

​

"Running Scared in the Primary: Campaign behavior of safe incumbents in a partisan era"

​

Abstract:

Over the last few decades, partisanship in the electorate has strengthened and the

number of competitive congressional districts has shrunk. Now, the vast majority of

incumbents are overwhelmingly likely to be re-elected in general elections simply because their party affiliation matches that of their district. Despite this decrease in

electoral competitiveness, incumbents who are heavily advantaged to win their general

elections still campaign vigorously, raising more money each cycle and allocating

more time and staff to campaigning. I posit that these ”safe” incumbents continue to

campaign vigorously to project strength to deter strong candidates from challenging

them in the only remaining election that could be competitive: the primary. These

incumbents would rather deter these challengers from entering the race than risk facing

them in the primary when voters are not tied by partisanship to the incumbent. Using

fundraising data from House of Representative elections from 2002 to 2018, I show

that these incumbents use fundraising to project strength to outside political actors,

are less concerned with projecting strength during the primary and general election

campaigns, and are most concerned with projecting strength before the candidacy filing

deadline. Using data on primary challenger entry dates, I also show that primary

challengers announce their campaigns after receiving cues about incumbents’ strength

from fundraising data. Incumbents with safe general elections still campaign vigorously

because they are “running scared.”

​

“Who you gonna call? How primary campaigns conduct voter outreach” (available upon request)

​

Abstract: Though scholars have examined the incentives, activity, and efficacy of campaigns during general elections, little work examines the same topics for campaigns during primary elections. Which voters do primary campaigns contact? And what information do they communicate? I develop a logical argument for who primary campaigns should target and for what purpose. Primary campaigns have less information about voters than general election campaigns, and so have unique disincentive to invest in GOTV and keep the electorate narrowed to hyper-involved primary voters. I find my hypotheses from this argument largely confirmed in interviews with campaign managers who have worked on state legislative, statewide, congressional and senatorial races. Primary campaigns do not seek to widen the primary electorate even when it could be beneficial for their candidate, instead seeking to persuade over hyper-involved primary voters. This work illuminates the elite side to primary turnout, and argues that this side is integral to understanding the composition of the primary electorate, and the consequences of that composition, an area of active debate in the literature.  

​

“Encouraging Crossover Voting in Congressional Primaries” With Daniel Markovits. (available upon request)

 

Abstract: 

Scholars and journalists are increasingly concerned about the rise of extremist nominees in primary elections. And yet in at least 17 open primary states, swathes of ideologically diverse voters are eligible to participate in primaries of parties with which they do not identify. Yet this behavior remains rare, even as voters' fears of extremism and democratic backsliding in the opposing party mount. Why? We propose three explanations. First, voters believe that participating in opposing party primaries goes against their affective partisan instincts and their understanding of democratic norms. Second, candidates running in primaries may not be sufficiently appealing to opposing partisans to motivate crossover voting. Third, campaigns may not make efforts to encourage crossover voting. Across four pre-registered survey and field experiments, we find support for all three mechanisms and show that crossover voting can be encouraged in both survey experimental and real-world contexts. We argue that this unusual form of voter behavior offers the opportunity to restrain extremism in intra-party elections and that behavioral changes rather than institutional reforms are a viable short-term solution to mitigating polarization. 
 

Encouraging Crossover Voting in Presidential Primaries" With Daniel Markovits. (available upon request)

​

Abstract:

Will voters participate in the opposing party's presidential primary to prevent an anti-democratic candidate from winning that party's nomination? We investigated this question by examining the results of a large, pre-registered field experiment (N = 83,800) conducted by a partner organization in the lead-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire. We find a specialized get-out-the-vote intervention is able to increase turnout in the Republican primary among a subset of undeclared voters who are modelled as Democrats. Our treatment increased Republican Primary turnout in this sample by 1.6 percentage points while reducing turnout in the Democratic Primary by 0.5 percentage points. Analyzing differential treatment intensity, we find that higher levels of contact were modestly more effective in generating turnout. We find, consistent with pre-registered expectations, treatment was more effective for more educated voters. We argue that encouragements to crossover vote are an important avenue for bolstering sophisticated, pro-democracy behavior in the electorate. 
 

​

“Homevoters on the statewide stage: Does homeownership change participation in state elections?”

​​

Winner of Best Graduate Student Poster at State Politics and Policy Conference 2024.

​

Abstract: How does homeownership affect citizens’ political behavior at multiple levels of government? The local politics literature finds that homeownership creates “homevoters,” savvy political actors in local politics who engage in costly forms of participation around issues of zoning and land use. This is contrary to much of the literature studying state and national politics that finds voters largely difficult to turn out and inattentive to politics. Meanwhile, the issue that prompts homeowners to get involved local politics, zoning, has been increasingly discussed and legislated at higher levels of government, with multiple states outlawing single family zoning and requiring comprehensive rezoning. This paper studies the implication of state action on zoning issues on homeowners’ political behavior. Specifically, does state legislation on zoning policy increase engagement in state elections among homeowners? This paper uses CES survey data, and a matching and difference in differences design to examine these questions.