Consequences Have Elections
Republican Support and Economic Hardship: The Enduring Effects of the Opioid Epidemic
Carolina Arteaga & Victoria Barone
NBER Working Paper, June 2025
Abstract:
In this paper, we establish a causal connection between two of the most salient social developments in the United States over the past decades: the opioid epidemic and the political realignment between the Republican and Democratic parties. Drawing on unsealed records from litigation against Purdue Pharma, we uncover rich geographic variation in the marketing of prescription opioids that serves as a quasi-exogenous source of exposure to the epidemic. We use this variation to document significant increases in drug-related mortality and greater reliance on public transfer programs. This induced economic hardship led to substantial changes in the political landscape of the communities most affected by the opioid epidemic. We estimate that from the mid-2000s to 2022, exposure to the opioid epidemic continuously increased the Republican vote share in House, presidential, and gubernatorial elections. By the 2022 House elections, a one-standard-deviation increase in our measure of exposure led to a 4.5 percentage point increase in the Republican vote share. From 2012 until 2022, this increase in the House vote share translated into Republicans winning additional seats.
The Effects of Ranked Choice Voting on Substantive Representation
Arjun Vishwanath
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, June 2025, Pages 409-437
Abstract:
Ranked choice voting (RCV) is an increasingly popular electoral institution that has been posited by reformers and media outlets to produce transformative effects on electoral outcomes and representation. However, there is little social scientific evidence available that evaluates these claims. I test the effects of RCV on municipal fiscal outcomes and the ideological composition of city councils. I also estimate RCV's effects on these outcomes relative to public opinion -- in other words, whether RCV narrows the gap between outcomes and mass policy preferences. This article finds no empirical support for the proposition that RCV changed fiscal outcomes or the ideological composition of city councils -- both on absolute terms and relative to mass opinion. Furthermore, the roll-call based ideal points of legislators serving before and after RCV did not change, and the relationship between city district opinion and city legislator ideology is unchanged post-adoption. Taken as a whole, this article does not find evidence that RCV has produced the types of transformative political effects that reformers have postulated.
Press Coverage and Accountability in State Legislatures
Andrew Myers
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
State legislatures are critical policymaking bodies, yet recent studies suggest that elections rarely hold state legislators accountable for their representation and voters generally know little about legislative politics. Would state legislatures function differently if voters had access to more information about legislative politics? Leveraging the haphazard overlap of newspaper markets and legislative districts, I construct and validate a measure of legislative press coverage in all 49 partisan state legislatures for the years 2000-2022 that is plausibly uncorrelated with other district-level variables. Drawing on this large-scale dataset, this article traces the impact of press coverage on state legislative voters, elections, and, ultimately, representation. I find that robust local press coverage substantially augments down-ballot voter engagement, the electoral return to ideological moderation, and the incumbency advantage. Once in office, I further document that state legislators who receive stronger press coverage work more for their constituencies and diverge less from their district's median voter. Overall, these results suggest that state legislators would be more moderate, representative, and productive were local press coverage strengthened.
Does Priming Democratic Vulnerability Make Citizens Punish Undemocratic Behavior?
Kristian Frederiksen
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent instances of public support for democracy-violating political leaders have sparked an important stream of research suggesting that such leaders may gain support by representing citizens' political interests or by holding competence advantages. However, less attention has been given to how to counter such support. One possible route for pro-democratic forces to counter anti-democratic tendencies is telling people that democracy is vulnerable and at risk of breaking down. In this paper, I examine this straightforward intervention against support for undemocratic politicians. Specifically, I prime democratic vulnerability and assign undemocratic behavior to political candidates in two experimental studies from 2020 to 2021 including 10 countries in total. I find that vulnerability priming only in few cases increases the extent to which citizens sanction undemocratic behavior. The findings have important implications for our knowledge of how to counter democratic backsliding and show that pro-democratic forces may be better off resorting to other arguments.
Fundraising Events and Non-Ideological Donation Motivations
Sean Kates & Sebastian Thieme
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do individual donors attend fundraising events and, relatedly, why do candidates rely on events to finance their campaigns? Despite public concerns around this mode of donation, fundraising events have received little scholarly attention. We use campaign finance disclosures in four U.S. states, which indicate event- and non-event status of donations, linked to political candidates to examine two hypotheses. First, events help candidates draw on individual donors' non-ideological motivations, including material motivations. Second, events help candidates fundraise when ideological motivations are relatively low. We provide evidence that donors discount ideology when they attend events, and link agenda powers of legislative incumbents to increases in event donations, including from individuals in related business sectors. Further, we show that early donations from individuals are more likely to be made via events than later donations, especially for incumbents. Our results highlight implications of event fundraising for responsiveness, partisan polarization, and candidate selection.
Texas in the Rear-View Mirror? How the Democratic Party Ignores Rural America and Underperforms in Elections
Clinton Willbanks & Michael Shepherd
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Political observers have asserted that Democrats have stopped campaigning for rural votes. Despite this refrain, little quantitative evidence has assessed its veracity. We also do not understand the broader electoral implications of these potential geographic changes in party organizing. To explore these questions, we merge two novel data sources on county party organizational capacity with county-level election data and survey data from the CES. Since 2016, the Democratic Party has failed to declare a party chair in about 20% of rural counties and did not field a candidate for Congress in nearly the same, while Republicans filled all but 4% of rural chairships and contested every rural seat. With broader data from Texas, we show even larger percentages of rural counties have uncontested State Senate and House seats. These changes are associated with decreased Democratic vote share in statewide races, turnout, and campaign contact. We estimate that the Democratic Party loses some of the rural vote in statewide elections by failing to organize and compete for it.
The Right Kind of (Gay) Man? Sexuality, Gender Presentation, and Heteronormative Constraints on Electability
Martin Naunov
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores two key biases underpinning heteronormativity: those against homosexuality and gender nonconformity. Through a novel experimental design deploying visual and audio stimuli to manipulate the sexuality and gender presentation of men as political candidates, I uncover persisting biases among American voters. Republicans and voters desiring order and certainty penalize gay candidates while Democrats prefer them. However, both Democrats and Republicans penalize gender nonconformity. I show the acceptance of gay candidates by Democrats comes with a demand for candidates to look and sound "straight." Moreover, I find voters penalize gender nonconformity in both gay and straight men, highlighting that heteronormative ideologies, while privileging heterosexuality over homosexuality, do not (dis)advantage all gay and straight candidates equally. Probing the contours of our egalitarianism and our understanding of who gets to walk the halls of power, these findings underscore the importance of considering status differentials both across and within census-style identity categories.
Candidate B-Roll as Super PAC Subsidy
Gabriel Foy-Sutherland
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research theorizes that recent growth in outside election spending has undermined candidates' ability to control the information received by voters. This paper explores how candidates have adapted to retain control over their visual presentation to voters in the face of competition with wealthy outside interests. Drawing on a new dataset of B-Roll video and image provision in congressional campaigns, I show that this strategy was employed more than 650 times in 390 U.S. House and Senate races from 2018-2022. These visual resources served as a novel form of subsidy for allied super PACs, lowering the cost of production for outside ads and encouraging outside involvement in congressional races. By matching candidate-provided visual resources to a dataset of 7881 political ads, I show that more than $116.5 million of "independent" outside advertising was subsidized through candidate B-Roll and image provision during the 2018 and 2020 cycles alone. This research indicates that candidates continue to prioritize - and wield significant control over - their visual presentation in political advertising despite regulatory and financial disadvantages.
Minor Party Major Change: Democratic Environmental Re-Prioritization in Response to Green Party Competition
Cassidy Reller
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does the emergence of new political competition alter established party behavior? In this article, I analyze how major parties in the United States adjust their agendas in response to new third-party competition. By analyzing state party platforms using text as data, I show that the emergence of Green Party competition prompts a re-prioritization of environmental issues within the Democratic platform. Unlike previous literature in the United States focused on adaptation in issue positions or ideology, I demonstrate that adaptation occurs in the salience an issue is given. This happens when a third party strategically contests close elections; the ideologically similar major party will re-focus on the new third party's policy priorities. This article highlights the role that third parties play in shaping the agendas of major parties, underscores the continued importance of party adaptation in maintaining the two-party system in American politics, and illustrates the influence that electorally marginalized interests can exert on major parties.
Having enough of a say
Andreas Bengtson & Lasse Nielsen
Economics & Philosophy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Political Equality is the view that, in political matters, everyone should have an equal say. Political Sufficiency is the view that, in political matters, everyone should have enough of a say. Whereas Political Equality is concerned with relativities, Political Sufficiency is a matter of absolutes. It is natural to assume that, to justify 'one person, one vote', we must appeal to Political Equality. We argue that this is not the case. If Political Equality justifies 'one person, one vote', so does Political Sufficiency. Moreover, there is reason to prefer Political Sufficiency to Political Equality.