Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in surveys conducted with online respondents who choose to participate without random selection. Using an uncompensated, opt-in panel of 11,000 Pennsylvania respondents conducted from 2020-2022, we benchmark self-reports against public records of vote...

Immigrant populations in many developed democracies have grown rapidly, and so too has an extensive literature on natives' attitudes toward immigration. This research has developed from two theoretical foundations, one grounded in political economy, the other in political psychology. These two...

This paper uses the post-Katrina migration as an exogenous shock to test theories of contact and racial threat while minimizing concerns about selection bias. Drawing on a new survey of 3,879 respondents, it demonstrates that despite the national concern about issues of race and poverty...

Can randomized experiments at the individual level help assess the persuasive effects of campaign tactics? To answer that question, we analyze a field experiment conducted during the 2008 presidential election in which 56,000 registered voters in Wisconsin were assigned to persuasive canvassing,...

Experiments demonstrate that elites can influence public opinion through framing. Yet outside laboratories or surveys, real-world constraints are likely to limit elites' ability to reshape public opinion. Additionally, it is difficult to distinguish framing from related processes empirically....

Citizens' economic perceptions can shape their political and economic behavior, making those perceptions' origins an important question. Research commonly posits that media coverage is a central source. Here, we test that prospect while considering the alternative hypothesis that media coverage...

Retrospective voting is a central explanation for voters' support of incumbents. Yet despite the variety of conditions facing American cities, past research has devoted little attention to retrospective voting for mayors. Local economic conditions are widely reported, making them one likely...

Political scientists have increasingly deployed conjoint survey experiments to understand multi-dimensional choices in various settings. We demonstrate that the Average Marginal Component Effect (AMCE) constitutes an aggregation of individual-level preferences that translates into a primary...

Two prominent, compatible accounts contend that Asian Americans and Latinos are not strongly connected to America's political parties and that their partisanship is responsive to identity threats. Donald Trump's political ascent presents a critical test, as Trump reoriented the Republican Party...

The violent conclusion of Trump's 2017-2021 presidency has produced sobering reassessments of American democracy. Elected officials' actions necessarily implicate public opinion, but to what extent did Trump's presidency and its anti-democratic efforts reflect shifts in public opinion in prior...