Some signs of a Canadian effect in the midterms, leading to Democratic advantages and Republican distancing from Trump in Michigan, Maine, and Alaska (plus northern House races): honestgraft.substack.com/p/will-there...

Will There Be a “Canada Effect” Along the Northern Border in the 2026 Midterms?

National elections are mostly fought and viewed through a national lens, and 2026 is no different.

honestgraft.substack.com

It looks like every political science degree program will meet the education department earnings threshold www.theheagroup.com/blog/earning...

NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:

‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research

Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year

science.org

I went a little crazy and modeled every statehouse this way: claude.ai/code/artifac...

2026 Statehouse Tracker

2026 Statehouse Tracker

claude.ai

Like national race forecasters, analysts of state legislative races are relatively timid in seeing opportunities for wave election pickups. But if the generic ballot shifts 12 points, with both differential partisan turnout & a large swing, it suggests many unexpected pickups

The shift in the generic ballot against the president's party continues. Although consistent with the historic pace & direction, this should be close to the largest 2-year shift in generic ballot polling on record; see below for the averages since the 30s www.natesilver.net/p/generic-ba...

Matt Grossmann@mattgrossmann.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Majority parties of the president lose generic ballot support as midterms approach, especially at the end. It responds to falling prez approval & thermostatic public opinion. Backlash to the Iran War & immigration crackdowns will help Dems, but are consistent with normal cycle

Democrats are overperforming in 5 states Trump won by double digits, with Senate candidates rated better & less extreme than the broader Democratic Party & than the Republican candidates www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/u...

Democrats May Have Found the Recipe for Flipping Red-State Senate Seats

Five new Times/Siena polls continue a run of strong results for the party in states that President Trump won easily in 2024.

nytimes.com

Since 2000, the average college course description has more political content & more liberal slant. Changes are modest relative to persistent cross-field differences; student demand for liberal content rises over the 2010s & peaks in 2020 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

women congressional candidates may be more ideologically extreme and are more likely to be punished for their ideological positions than men journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Candidate Gender and District Ideological Alignment in U.S. Congressional Elections, 2002–2020 - Jordan Kujala, Danielle Joesten Martin, 2026

Candidate ideology impacts a wide range of electoral outcomes, but are there gendered differences in the effects of candidate ideology? Using a unique dataset o...

journals.sagepub.com

Americans (open-ended) evaluations of presidential candidates have increasingly emphasized personal qualities over policy; & respondents articulate fewer distinct criteria journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Bipartisan negotiated settlements remain an important path to policy change, often requiring a lot of behind-the-scenes work & working around elections & presidential involvement. Possible post-election action www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

US senators hit deal on energy project permitting bill, vote seen after November

US senators from both parties said on Wednesday they have reached a deal to reform laws on the permitting of large energy and infrastructure ​projects, though a vote will not occur before the midterm ...

reuters.com

Vulnerable Members of Congress are LocalMaxing Facing tough re-elections, legislators spend more time at home & focus on local bills & serving constituents over national policy New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with Jaclyn Kaslovsky www.niskanencenter.org/vulnerable-m...

Vulnerable members of Congress localize - Niskanen Center

Many Members of Congress are electorally vulnerable this year. Do they have to moderate to survive?

niskanencenter.org

I enjoyed Blockers, the new Michael Lewis book on DOGE. Again, the reporting at the time was mostly correct: it was haphazard & inexperienced efforts that degraded government without achieving savings. But most effects are long-term & harder to see. hookedlansing.com/book/9781324...

Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State

An inside look at the early days of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, as told by the public servants it targeted and one of America’s best storytellers. Blockers. It wasn’t a compliment. In...

hookedlansing.com

DOGE contract cuts were concentrated in counties that gave Trump less support in 2024 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The Punitive Dimension of Presidential Particularism | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core

The Punitive Dimension of Presidential Particularism

cambridge.org

We have the book cover for Policymaking for Realists! There may be time for small changes if you have them.

Ideological principle or outgroup attitudes? An experimental analysis of cross-pressures, social dominance orientation, and vote choice among white Americans www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Ideological principle or outgroup attitudes? An experimental analysis of cross-pressures, social dominance orientation, and vote choice among white Americans

How does the mass public resolve a cross-pressure when it is along the dimensions of ideological identity and outgroup attitudes? While previous literature has examined the power of these attachmen...

tandfonline.com

when fertility has fallen low, it has tended to keep falling. there is no robust evidence for fertility rebound, or for a stable equilibrium point www.nber.org/papers/w35824

Does Fertility Stabilize At Low Levels? Evidence from Period, Cohort, and Subnational Data

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

nber.org

I continue to believe the pocket rescission reform can form the basis of a successful bipartisan bill to address presidential power grabs, though probably not until a Democratic president. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/u...

Trump Proposes $810 Million in Education and Health Cuts, Defying Congress

The attempted clawback represents the second time in as many years that the White House has sought to cancel funding approved by lawmakers.

nytimes.com

Dems own health care & thus usually get blamed for Obamacare failures even if product of Rep decisions: www.niskanencenter.org/why-rural-ar... But telling 760,000 people they will lose coverage right before election might be closer to traceable 2016 price hike: www.niskanencenter.org/how-medicaid...

Why rural areas vote Republican despite worse health outcomes - Niskanen Center

Rural areas disproportionately suffer from Republican policies but Republicans can blame Democrats for worse health outcomes, especially when policies can be framed as helping immigrants or racial min...

niskanencenter.org

Doesn't do much but Congress just passed the American Music Tourism Act in voice & unanimous votes to promote domestic & international travel to festivals & music history sites. A sign of acceptance of the festival economy, a generation from Woodstock 99 & from the rave act

IPU partnered with the MSU Institute for Public Policy and Social Research for yesterday's policy forum The Data on Data Centers. Panelists included MSU professors @jeanhardy.bsky.social, Dong Zhao, and IPU Director @eriknordman.bsky.social. Thanks to @mattgrossmann.bsky.social and team for hosting.

Democrats have declined in areas just outside city limits, suggesting that partisan sorting is related not only to a city’s demographic & socioeconomic characteristics but also to its taxation and expenditures www.emerald.com/jpipe/articl...

City limits and partisan sorting

To what extent does variation in access to local governance explain partisan sorting in the USA? Prior research shows that voters do not sort into neighborhoods based on partisan concerns alone. Howev...

emerald.com

AI is explicitly and implicitly associated with Whiteness across diverse samples psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...

Trump's unpopularity, rising costs, & the midterm penalty make Republican loss of one or both chambers; despite threats, turnout should be high & election administration should be good: academic.oup.com/HTTPHandlers...

Normal Politics Under Stress: The 2026 Midterm Elections and Constraints on Presidential Power

This essay presents my expectations for the 2026 midterm elections. Despite anxieties over Trump's refusal to concede in 2020, mid-cycle redistricting, and

academic.oup.com

Most AGI predictions have historically been unfalsifiable; two early predications were wrong & most others remain open papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Do Boots and a Truck Make Candidates Republican? candidates can use cultural signals to show loyalties; voters intuit partisanship but rely more on partisan & policy information when available New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with Levi Allen www.niskanencenter.org/do-boots-and...

Do boots and a truck make candidates Republican? - Niskanen Center

Levi Allen finds that voters can intuit partisanship from symbols like cowboy boots and a truck but rely more on partisan and policy information when it is available.

niskanencenter.org

internet diffusion is associated with national declines in religiosity academic.oup.com/socrel/advan...

Internet Diffusion and Religious Decline: Evidence from 81 Countries, 1990–2022

Abstract. Using a panel of 81 countries across six World Values Survey waves (1990–2022), we examine whether growth in internet diffusion is associated wit

academic.oup.com

workers in hazardous occupations are more conservative & grow more conservative over time academic.oup.com/HTTPHandlers...

Occupational hazard and political segregation in the US labor market

Abstract. The tendency for liberals and conservatives to cluster in different occupations significantly impacts society, yet the factors that contribute to

academic.oup.com

American liberals and conservatives have different cognitive styles, but (mostly) respond the same to party cues www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Democratic House gain expectations vary widely, with seat-by-seat ratings implying much more limited gains (treating toss-ups as truly 50/50) compared to model projections