Kamala Harris has an edge in the Veepstakes, according to political science research

The 2020 Democratic “Veepstakes” is now officially underway. Given that Biden often refers to himself as a “transitional” candidate, his choice of vice president is all the more important given that his running mate will be seen by many as the “heir apparent” to succeed him as president a stronger degree than is normally the case. Also, if elected Joe Biden will be the oldest president ever to assume office and Social Security actuarial tables say that he has roughly a 1 in 4 chance of not making it to the end of his first term in office (so to speak) which may affect his decision to run for a second term in office. So who will Biden choose as his running mate?

Political scientist Jody Baumgartner has studied the vice presidency selection process at length. Looking at veep choices since 1960, he found that there are five key factors that tend to predict who “wins the Veepstakes” from the initial shortlists for both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates alike:

1. High media exposure: all other things being equal, those who are more prominent and visible in the media for a year or more before the nominating conventions tend to be tapped as a running mate.
2. Previous experience in the federal government by way of the Senate, House of Representatives, or other federal-level appointment.
3. Military experience tends to give potential candidates a boost.
4. Age: all other things being equal, younger veep candidates tend to have an edge over older candidates.
5. Gender/racial/ethnic balance: if the presidential nominee is a white male of northwestern European ancestry, veep candidates who are not one of those three things tend to have an edge (and vice versa).

All together, Baumgartner found that these five factors reliably predicted vice presidential selections about 70% of the time from 1960-2016.

What is surprising from Baumgartner’s analysis is what does not tend to consistently predict someone getting the vice presidential pick, given how often these factors are brought up by media pundits: candidates who will provide geographic balance or are from a what is considered to be a “swing state” in hopes of delivering the state’s electoral votes. Similarly, veep nominees tend to come from smaller and larger states alike and are no more likely than not to have had state-level government experience (governor, state legislature, etc.). They also tend to be about as likely as not to be among the presidential nominee’s competitors in the primary, and the idea of “ideological balance” makes a different about as often as it doesn’t.

How does Biden’s shortlist this year stack up against these five key factors? I looked at the six shortlist candidates most frequently brought up over the past month: Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Val Demings, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and former state Rep. Stacey Abrams.

 

	Harris	Klobuchar	Warren	Demings	Whitmer	Abrams
New York Times mentions 01/01/2019-05/29/2020	1583	1415	3574	241	347	244
Prior service in Senate/House/other federal appt	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Military experience?	No	No	No	No	No	No
Age	55	60	70	63	48	46
Gender balance?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Racial/ethnic balance?	Yes	No(?)	No(?)	Yes	No	Yes

 

Biden has pledged that his vice president will be a woman and none of the leading candidates have military experience, so all six candidates are equal on those two factors.

Stacey Abrams has a clear edge when it comes to her age and adding racial/ethnic balance to the ticket but has no federal government service experience and relatively low media visibility compared to some of the other candidates.

Gretchen Whitmer’s only key advantage (in terms of Baumgartner’s factors described above) is that she is younger than most of the other candidates, but also lacks federal government service and does not add racial/ethnic balance to the ticket.

Val Demings has an edge when it comes to adding racial/ethnic balance to the ticket and she has previous federal government experience. She is also the least visible of the six candidates here, at least as measured by NYT media mentions.

Elizabeth Warren has a strong edge when it comes to visibility and prior federal government experience. Her DNA test showing some Native American ancestry notwithstanding, she is no longer emphasizing a non-white ancestry and so wouldn’t balance the ticket in that respect. She’s also older than the other five candidates by at least ten years.

Amy Klobuchar is about middle of the pack on these factors: she has previous federal government experience and is younger than some of the candidates but older than others as well. She has a high-ish level of media mentions/visibility. According to Baumgartner’s research, “racial/ethnic” balance is defined as not being of “northwest European” ancestry, so technically Klobuchar’s Slovenian ancestry would qualify, but similar to Elizabeth Warren, this is not something she is emphasizing and so likely would not boost her chances here.

On balance, Kamala Harris seems to fit Baumgartner’s veep selection model the best of these six candidates. She has relatively high visibility/media mentions, she has previous federal government experience, she’s a notch younger than the average age of the six candidates, and adds clear racial/ethnic balance to the ticket.

It’s interesting to note that the strongest candidates, according to Baumgartner’s model, are the same as are currently leading the betting markets: Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Comparing the two, Warren has the edge when it comes to visibility but Harris has the edge when it comes to age and racial/ethnic ticket balancing.

Given these considerations, I’d say that Harris has about a two-in-three chance of getting the nod as Joe Biden’s running mate this year, and perhaps even odds of being the  Democratic presidential nominee in 2024 given Joe Biden’s advancing age.

Gen Z in the college classroom: how to best understand and teach the new generation of students?

I recently finished two books that offer some early evidence of the values and habits of the GenZ generation, those born in the late 1990s through the early 2010s. They are starting to enter college and for the first time my students will be of a different generation label than me. (Yes, it finally happened.)

These books are:

• Generation Z Goes to College by Corey Seemiller and Meghan Grace
• Gen Z: The Culture, Beliefs and Motivations Shaping the Next Generation by the Barna Group.

Some of the key take-aways about the Gen Zers from these two books include:

• Coming of age during the global financial crisis of the late 2000s has often led them to be hyper-anxious about their future economic stability and security. “Getting a job” is the primary (if not exclusive) reason that most of them go to college.
  • “Happiness” tends to be equated with financial security and economic independence. That is the primary goal that they’re anxious and highly motivated to achieve before they reach 30.
  • They want practical, applicable knowledge and skills for job competitiveness.
  • The perceived need for college credentials has led to the accumulation of massive amounts of student debt, seeing it as a necessary step toward economic stability and self-sufficiency through a college degree, but has also been accompanied by widespread anxiety about the ability to ever pay the loans off.
  • Given these uncertainties, there is a general craving for predictability and order in an uncertain world. They are less likely to take risks than previous generations (fewer rates of drug use, teenage pregnancy, etc.) while simultaneously experiencing more anxiety about the future.
• Digital natives — most have never known life without a smartphone. They are often constantly on their devices.
  • This has pros: easy and instant access to a world of information, being able to form social groups and find opportunities online, often becoming knowledge “specialists” rather than generalists.
  • It also has its cons: shorter attention spans, hyper-vigilance about online profiles, more difficult to foster interpersonal interaction skills, etc. It tends to produce rates of anxiety and depression at higher rates than previous generations.
• Diversity is a given and to be celebrated, not a reality to be tolerated. About half identify as non-white.
  • Identity, including gender and sexuality, is considered fluid and self-determined.
  • To GenZers, the worst thing you can do is offend someone or make them think that you’re judging their self-selected values or identities.
• Texting/instant messaging is the default communication method. Email is what adults do. Facebook is what they use to connect with older family and friends, but Twitter and Instagram are used to connect to peers.
• They perceive effective leaders as those who can facilitate collective action and decision making to accomplish shared objectives, complex thinking, adaptability, interdependence. They want honesty and transparency in leadership instead of paternalistic information-shielding.
  • They do not tend to admire their bosses, religious leaders, celebrities, or political leaders.
• They have grown up in a world where major institutions (economic, religious, political) have not produced many good results and have hurt the world in many ways, and so are skeptical of the virtue and effectiveness of institutions.

 

After reading these books, I am still ruminating on a series of questions regarding my vocation as a college professor:

1. The culture of liberal arts colleges (and much of higher education in general) is to push back against the idea that a college education is merely an instrumental means to the ultimate goal of career preparation and economic security. We often explicitly remind students that becoming a well-educated person has its own intrinsic value as a step toward self-actualization and intellectual freedom, separate from whatever economic advantage it may give someone. But this research seems to indicate that economic security and “getting a job” is the top motivating concern and source of anxiety for the Gen Z generation. How should this inform the culture and values of our classrooms, syllabi, and institutions? Should it?
2. To what extent is it the job of a college education to promote healthy technology skills and values? Should we be actively reminding students about how too much reliance on social media is associated with anxiety and depression? Should we be intentionally fostering healthier technology habits…? Or is that the job of some other institution (or at all)?
3. How might we balance the very admirable values of inclusivity, mutual respect, and compassion that characterize the Gen Z generation with the need to teach and practice skills of argument, debate, and civil disagreement that are vital to democratic citizenship?
4. Should college professors take the reality of shorter attention spans as a given and actively create lesson plans accordingly? Or should professors work to help students foster longer attention spans by designing lesson plans that require sustained focus for long periods of time?
5. How should colleges and professors respond to increasing levels of anxiety and depression among Gen Z students that seem to be strongly related to cell phone use and social media? To what extent should our lesson plans and group discussion formats be designed to minimize student anxiety? Is anxiety management within the purview of college instructors? We often say that learning most often occurs when students get “outside their comfort zone.” How might this be effectively accomplished in a way that does not increase already-higher-than-average levels of anxiety and depression?

Discuss.

Sabbatical reading summaries: political science and sociology books

As part of my Fall 2019 research sabbatical, I was able to get caught up on some of the more popular and influential political science and sociology academic books published in the last two years. Here are some highlights from several of them:

Uncivil Agreement by Liliana Mason: a basic overview on how partisans are sorted and the social psychology behind it (social identity theory, affective partisanship, etc.) as well as some ideas on how to fix it. Good for undergrads at intro level.

The Great Alignment by Alan Abramowitz: an update of his 2012 book Polarized Public, but the argument is mostly the same. Partisans are sorted and polarized and this drives elite polarization. It’s about ideology, race, religion, and geography. Includes a chapter on transformation of New Deal coalition to now and another on the 2016 election and the role of racial resentment.

Neither Liberal nor Conservative by Donald Kinder and Nathan Kalmoe: basically, Converse is still right and most Americans don’t think in ideological terms. They don’t well know the difference between the two. A quarter ID as nothing and half say they’re moderate. Ideology has little effect on voting or other attitudes after PID is controlled for. Instead, Americans think in terms of groups and attachment to groups.

Do Facts Matter? by Jennifer Hochschild and Einstein: an examination of the normative importance of knowing right information and acting on it for democratic citizenship. Relies on about ten different case studies of both Democrats and Republicans getting wrong information and not caring or doing anything about it. Better for graduate students or advanced undergraduates.

The Increasingly United States by Daniel Hopkins: people used to behave differently at the local than national level. Over the last several decades local and state parties have increasingly come to mirror the national parties and also voters tend to vote much more consistently along party lines. So now there are few split ticket voters. Why? Nationalization of media, decline of local news coverage, etc. Also has worrying implications for democratic responsiveness at the local level. Great text for a class on federalism or local politics.

Democracy in America by Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens: their key argument is that government is responsive to wealthy and interest groups but not average Americans due to the influence of money and time and making it hard for people to come into the system. First part: covers realities and contexts of economic inequality. Then they make several policy recommendations; then argue for a mass movement to achieve it. Good for presenting an economic explanation of inequality and American gridlock and polarization. Good to consider for those skeptical of inequality.

Democracy for Realists by Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels: basically, a big test of how democracy is “supposed” to work according to romantic visions, then an account of how it actually works.
1. Most Americans don’t think ideologically (Converse)
2. Most Americans are uninformed
3. More opportunities for democratic participation won’t be taken advantage of: most people just don’t want to participate
4. Retrospective voting
5. Voters don’t assign blame very well, making it hard to be accountable
6. Voters do economic voting, but only in the few months before an election
7. More assault on retrospective voting theory
8. Better model: group attachment. Group loyalties drive politics
9. Survey of group behavior 1960s-present
10. Our view of reality is shaped by these partisan lenses
11. View for the future
This is a great book for a voter behavior upper-level course. There is a LOT of classic texts and concepts that would otherwise be in a standard textbook, except it’s better written.

The Polarizers by Sam Rosenfeld: the narrative story of the emergence of American polarization from FDR through 2000. Focuses on people, parties, historical development, etc. Very little about time from 2000 onward. This would be good if a good historical narrative were called for.

From Politics to Pews by Michele Margolis: how politics is affecting religion in American society. Lifecycle effect: most kids drop out of religious participation in early adulthood or adolescence. If they get married and have kids, they usually drop back in, and their choice of congregation will be based on their political views, not vice versa. Moreso the case for better educated people; doesn’t happen as much with blacks; happened in 1960 election.

Uninformed by Skip Lupia: this is a how-to manual on how to increase teaching effectiveness when it comes to civics. Highlights include: 1) attach information to core concerns and perceived needs of students for desired skills, 2) you’re more efficient if they perceive your goals as similar to theirs. Show them how your interest in the material aligns with their interests. Try to emphasize shared in-group status. 3) frame the information in a way that aligns with student’s core values – it’ll be more likely to succeed, 4) cues and shortcuts are efficient and okay! 5) offer information that is helpful to increase a knowledge that the student views as valued and that they view as helpful to attain a goal. 6) focus on skills of citizenship over factual recall. 7) information is valuable to the extent to which it can be used. So… what information is valuable to produce usable knowledge in the skills we hope to promote with our students? What do we want them to be able to do?

Unequal and Unrepresented by Kay Schlozman, Henry Brady, and Sidney Verba: an overview of how political voice is distributed in the U.S. There is a persistent class bias both in participation and responsiveness. Interest groups don’t correct for that. And current inequality sometimes makes things worse but sometimes not. And most ways to fix it usually don’t work, so the class bias seems to be a core feature for now.

Anti-Pluralism by William Galston: written by a non-polemic conservative, an overview of what liberal democracy is and why it’s important, what the major threats are today, and an assessment of the U.S. and Trump. Focuses on both cultural and economic factors. And spends time at the end on “great man” leadership and character (something conservatives are generally responsive to).

Suicide of the West by Jonah Goldberg: first 2/3 is his version of Sapiens by Yuval Harari, the grand meta narrative of evolution and civilization and politics through the modern age. Last third is his critique of modern politics — welfare state liberals, identity politics liberals, populist Trump conservatives, etc.

The People vs Democracy by Yascha Mounk: really good overview of the rise of populism and the threat to liberal democracy. Defines liberal democracy really well and also focuses on illiberal democracy as well as undemocratic liberalism (European technocracy) and how they’re both problematic. Gives a fair shake to immigration, free speech, identity politics, etc. No sympathy for Trumpism. More detailed than Galston book and written by a non-native American and so there’s a strong comparative element.

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt: they are comparativists who study democratic consolidation and deconsolidation. They give a comparative overview of illiberal democratic leaders and trace Trump’s similarities. Their BIG lesson is that democratic norms are key: 1) recognize legitimacy of opposition, 2) let them take a turn at governing when they win, and 3) don’t use all the tools at your disposal to handicap them/be willing to exercise restraint.

The Despot’s Accomplice by Brian Klaas: despite lofty American rhetoric, we’ve often enabled and supported authoritarian regimes around the world. We often do it for strategic interests (oil, stability, etc.). At the same time, the U.S. and the west have been a force for good and freedom and democracy. So here’s what works, what doesn’t, how to promote democracy effectively, and why it’s important. (Fairly harsh on both Democratic and Republican presidents)

The Despot’s Apprentice by Brian Klaas: Trump isn’t a despot, but he wants to be; the book details the various ways that Trump meets the authoritarian playbook. Focuses on democratic rules and structures, standard policies like taxes, etc. Conclusion: democracy is worth the fight. Let’s do it!

The Great Revolt by Salena Zito and Brad Todd: this is a series of qualitative interviews with Trump voters. It’s more journalistic than scholarly but helpful to learn trends. They say that the Trump coalition is basically those who feel that the coastal liberal educated elite disrespects them, thinks they’re stupid, and thinks they’re barbarian racists. This even former Democrats who felt like national Democrats were mocking people like them. They distrust institutions, including global institutions, and so want to keep things decided as local as possible.

The Left Behind by Robert Wuthnow: ethnographic qualitative overview of the values, priorities, and worldviews of people in small rural towns. More sober than the Zito and Todd book, but also less politically relevant and less detailed.

The New Minority by Justin Gest: an academic empirical book that combines qualitative and quantitative research, half looking at Britons and half at the U.S. Focused on east London and Youngstown, OH. Same basic findings: white working class see themselves as in a bad spot economically with the decline of factory and other work. They think the government did it to them and hasn’t looked out for them since. And they resent when they see poor people on government assistance or minorities get what they interpret to be an unearned advantage over them despite not working hard enough.

 

…

If I were to pick one book to recommend to friends to explain contemporary American politics that was as comprehensive and sophisticated as possible, I would recommend Democracy for Realists by Achen and Bartels.

For introductory-level political science courses on the topic of contemporary American polarization and political behavior, I would recommend Uncivil Agreement by Mason.

For the best overview of the current populist moment around the globe and its threat to liberal democracy both at home and abroad, I can easily recommend The People vs. Democracy by Mounk.

For the best discussion of economic inequality and its effect on democracy, I would recommend Unequal and Unrepresented by Schlozman, Brady, and Verba.

For the best book to understand the Trump phenomenon in the last five years in the U.S., I actually would recommend The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker by Katherine Cramer as I think it does a better job of any of those I read this fall listed above.

For anyone interested in state/local politics, I can easily recommend The Increasingly United States by Hopkins.

 

 

My thoughts on the 2018 congressional election results

UPDATE 11/19/2018:

Today’s projection from FiveThirtyEight is that Republicans will pick up 2 Senate seats and Democrats will pick up 39 House seats. Democrats are also still projected to win the House popular vote by about 7%. This means that the political science forecasting models (which, when averaged, predicted a 2 seat Senate pickup for the GOP and a 36 seat pickup for Democrats in the House) were almost exactly spot on. In terms of interpretation, Democrats will likely exceed historical out-party midterm gains by 15 seats (higher than it was looking on election night). The historical average is about a 24 seat loss for the president’s party in midterm elections, and even less so when the economy is relatively strong as it currently is. Thus, Democrats won somewhere between 20-25 more seats than they usually do when the economy is strong. I thus revise my earlier interpretation of the election results of a “slight-to-moderate” negative referendum on President Trump to a “moderate-to-strong” negative referendum on his performance, especially combined with the much higher than normal turnout for a midterm election. If President Trump had a higher approval rating (or if the GOP had nominated someone like Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush in 2016), it’s entirely likely that the GOP would have minimized their losses and kept control of the House, thereby enabling them to continue pushing their legislative agenda and perhaps minimizing whatever Congressional oversight may eventually occur as a result of the eventual final report of the Mueller investigation.

ORIGINAL POST, ELECTION NIGHT:

How did the polls do?

House Democrats were predicted to win the popular vote by about 9% nationwide. As of about 1 AM  EST, Democrats are projected to win the popular vote by about 7%. Based on these polls, Democrats were predicted to pick up about 39 House seats, not far off from the 30-35 final projected pickups, as of the time of writing). The polls predicted that Senate Republicans would pick up about 1 seat, pretty close to the final projected result of about 2-3 seats (as of the time of this writing). Not a terrible showing when taking a broad view.

How did the political science forecasts do?

An average of political science forecast models of the election results predicted that Democrats would pick up about 36 seats in the House and thus also the majority. As of about 1 AM EST, Democrats were projected to pick up about 30-35 seats or so. These same models also predicted that Republicans would pick up 2 seats in the Senate which seems to be right in line with the likely outcome as of the time of this writing, give or take 1 seat.

These models are based on a few key variables: whether it’s a midterm election, presidential approval/disapproval, and prevailing economic conditions. Right now the economy is generally in pretty good shape and, all other things being equal, the president’s party tends to lose about 25 seats. The 30-35 seat loss for the president’s party is consistent with an unpopular president with a reasonably strong economy.

What do these results mean?

A key question for me is what the results imply about how “normalized” President Trump and his brand of illiberal populism has become in the American electorate. Roughly two-thirds of voters said that their vote was to either express approval or disapproval for President Trump. If the House vote was more or less in line with historical averages (about a 25 seat loss), I’d interpret that as a net neutral outcome as far as a presidential referendum goes and a normalization of Trumpism for voters.

A 30-35 Republican seat loss is somewhat higher than what we would expect given other key variables that tend to correlate highly with midterm election outcomes. In other words, if Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio had won the Republican nomination and maintained a 47-48%-ish approval rating with the same economy, we’d likely see more like a 25 Republican seat loss.

Thus, I interpret the additional 5-10 GOP seat loss as a slight-to-moderate “Trump penalty,” or negative referendum on Trump and Trumpism. The slight GOP gain in the Senate moderates that slightly. Also, Trump has a historically low approval rating considering the state of the economy and Democrats just won the national Congressional popular vote by about 7%.

To me, this suggests that Trump and Trumpism has become somewhat, but not entirely normalized among American voters. At the same time, it has not entirely shifted the boundaries of what is considered normal and legitimate in our political system.

What does this mean going forward?

Given that the House will be controlled by the Democrats and Senate by the Republicans, it is unlikely that much substantive legislation will be passed during the next two years.

On the Senate side, the most important implication of continued GOP control is that President Trump will continue to be able to successfully appoint conservative justices to the bench.

On the House side, the most important implication of Democratic control is the beginning of aggressive oversight of the Trump administration: investigations, hearings, etc. For the past two years the Republican House has largely declined to exercise any meaningful oversight over one of the most controversial presidents in modern history. The Democrats are ready to hit the ground running.

What are the normative implications of the results?

I tend to distinguish political actions, policies, and priorities between those that are normal in a liberal democratic political system (e.g. disagreement over taxes, budgets, abortion access, etc.) and those that are abnormal and harmful to a strong democratic system (e.g. using totalitarian rhetoric like “enemy of the people” to refer to free media institutions, referring to Nazis as “very fine people,” alienating democratic alliances in Europe while praising authoritarian dictators around the world, etc.).

President Trump is the legitimately and duly elected president based on our Constitutional Electoral College system. While his judicial appointments are certainly strong conservatives and strict constructionists, these are not outside the boundaries of traditional presidential judicial appointments. For the GOP to maintain control of the Senate means that the president’s judicial appointments will continue to be regularly confirmed. This is, in my view, entirely consistent with proper and legitimate liberal democratic outcomes.

On the other hand, President Trump has also engaged in numerous actions which by any standard are characteristic of illiberal democracies and authoritarian political systems (see here, here, and here, e.g.). That the American electorate produced only a moderate negative referendum on Trump and Trumpism is, in my view, disappointing. It suggests that Trumpism has become somewhat normalized in the public mind. Today’s election results showed that many segments of the American public are willing to tolerate a good deal of illiberal populist Trumpism and, for the most part, do not view the erosion of our democratic institutions and norms as a pressing concern.

In my perspective, the most important national priority right now is to counter illiberal populist Trumpism as strongly as possible, helping steer American conservatism back to its honorable history of support for small government and traditional values while adhering to liberal democratic principles.

At the Congressional level, though, I am more optimistic. Over the last two years the House of Representatives has largely declined to provide any meaningful “check and balance” against any of the illiberal excesses on the part of President Trump. As I have written, I believe that actions that weaken our democratic norms and institutions are a great deal more important than the regular disagreements over policy that are part of a normal and healthy democracy.

Thus, regardless of policy differences between Democrats and Republicans, I view it as a very, very, very good thing that a Democratic majority in the House will begin to exercise meaningful oversight over President Trump for the first time in his presidency. This is perhaps the most important long-term implication of Tuesday’s election results.

My advice to Congressional Republicans: fight President Trump’s trade war

GOP Senator John Cornyn recently explained why most Congressional Republicans are reluctant to push back against President Trump’s aggressive economic tariffs:

Cornyn makes clear why GOP doesn’t want to push Corker bill to rein in Trump on tariffs. “This is not the time to pick a fight with the president in the run-up to the midterm election.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 7, 2018

The (understandable) logic is that Congressional Republicans who defy Trump on these tariffs risk facing his Twitter-wrath which may hurt their reelection chances and/or congressional majority in this November’s midterm election. As a result, they have chosen mostly to keep their heads down rather than to speak out in defense of free trade (with a few notable exceptions), something that has traditionally been a key conservative/Republican priority.

Congressional Republicans should keep in mind, however, that tariffs have historically hurt economic growth. Indeed, the World Bank has recently warned that Trump’s tariffs risk starting a trade war that could cause another global economic recession similar in magnitude to the 2008 recession.

This matters for a variety of reasons, but more to Senator Cornyn’s concern, there is a strong correlation between economic performance and midterm congressional outcomes. When the economy is weak, the president’s party suffers heavy losses. 

Thus, I would advise Republicans who are concerned about maintaining control of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections to do everything they can to oppose President Trump’s recent tariffs. Not only would this demonstrate that their party’s commitment to free-market economic principles is genuine, but it would also help improve their reelection chances this fall.

Further, if President’s Trump’s tariffs do indeed spark a global trade war and a subsequent global economic recession, it will be very, very, very difficult for President Trump to win reelection in 2020, as domestic economic growth during the election year is a key predictor of presidential and election outcomes.

In sum, I predict that congressional Republicans will do more to hurt their chances this November by going along with President Trump’s tariffs than they would by opposing them.

 

 

A qualification to David Deutsch’s argument about proportional representation

In The Beginning of Infinity, physicist David Deutsch channels Karl Popper to argue that the best way to make progress and advance the state of human knowledge is not to seek knowledge from the best oracles, but rather to figure out the best way to “detect and eliminate error” (209), recognizing that all oracles of knowledge are ultimately fallible.

Applying this principle to politics, Deutsch argues that majoritarian plurality electoral systems are preferable to proportional representation parliamentary systems. This is because proportional representation systems produce legislatures with a strong multi-party system in which no one party ever enjoys a majority. Thus, policies from proportional representation systems are inevitably the result of strong compromise, making it difficult for voters to know who to hold accountable when they produce bad policies.

Also, while we commonly think of compromise as a good thing, he argues that:

The key defect of compromise policies is that when one of them is implemented and fails, no one learns anything because no one ever agreed with it. (346)

Instead, he argues that the institutions of a political system should function to make it easy to detect and eliminate error. This is more likely to be the case in majoritarian plurality systems where it is easy to hold the majority accountable for their performance and easier to replace them if that performance is judged poorly.

Following a plurality-voting election, the usual outcome is that the party with the largest total number of votes has an overall majority in the legislature, and therefore takes sole charge. All the losing parties are removed entirely from power. This is rare under proportional representation, because some of the parties in the old coalition are usually needed in the new one. Consequently, the logic of plurality is that politicians and political parties have little chance of gaining any share in the power unless they can persuade a substantial proportion of the population to vote for them. (347)

While this is an interesting argument, in my view it is also somewhat incomplete because electoral systems do not exist in a vacuum. The ability to efficiently replace governments that promote bad policies is also highly dependent on whether the democratic political system has a presidential or parliamentary system.

In the United States, for instance, we have a presidential majoritarian plurality system. In order for policies to be enacted, they must be supported by a majority of the House, Senate, as well as the presidency. In instances of “unified government,” where all are controlled by the same political party, it is indeed easy for voters for determine who to remove if policies are not working: the majority party in power. Such conditions of unified government are rare, however. Much more common is for Congress to be controlled by one party and the presidency to be controlled by another. In these situations, they blame each other for bad policies, making it difficult for voters to know who to hold accountable for poor performance.

In contrast, parliamentary systems combine the executive and legislative powers into a single entity. When policies are bad, voters know who to hold accountable: the coalition government in power. They also know more easily who to replace at the next election. This often produces a system that is often more likely to be responsive to voters who are more easily able to hold the government accountable for bad policies, often incentivizing better outcomes on the part of elected officials.

In sum, judging whether or not proportional representation or majoritarian plurality systems do a better job of detecting and eliminating bad policies requires, in my view, additional knowledge of the context and institutions where those policies are created.

 

Centre College convocation with Julia Azari and Dara Lind

On October 6, 2016 Centre College was pleased to host a convocation featuring Dr. Julia Azari of Marquette University and Dara Lind of Vox.com. They spoke for a little over an hour on the 2016 presidential election. Topics included:

• What explains Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination?
• What are common misperceptions about the election and what are more accurate ways to think about them?
• Does this election teach us anything about the politics of gender and/or ethnicity that we didn’t already know?
• What is the likely direction of both the Democratic and Republican parties going forward after the election is over?

Interested parties can listen to an audio recording of the convocation by CLICKING HERE.

We are grateful for their visit!

How many #nevertrump folks will change their mind?

Here is one of my (many) questions this morning: how many of the #nevertrump folks will ultimately change their mind and get behind their party’s presumptive nominee?

 

The usual pattern over the last several decades is this: partisans pick favorites in the primary and are angry when their candidate loses and vow never to support the person who beat them for the party nomination. Then they have a few months to think about it and turn their focus on the other party’s candidate. And then the convention happens and its a week of positive coverage of their party’s candidate and most of them end up saying “well, I didn’t support him in in the primary… but whatever, maybe he’s not so bad and he’s certainly better than the other party’s candidate.” Then the general election happens and 90%+ of Republicans vote for the Republican candidate and 90%+ of Democrats vote for the Democratic candidate.

 

Ordinarily that would lead me to be confident that most of the #nevertrump people will grumble for a few months but by September be on board the Trump train.

 

But Mr. Trump is no ordinary candidate. So my question is to what extent that pattern will hold or will we see something very different happen this time around?

 

I suppose only time will tell…

Are Donald Trump Supporters Merely “Unhyphenated Americans”?

One of the most interesting puzzles of this election cycle for both academics and pundits alike has been trying to explain exactly who exactly are all these Donald Trump supporters in the GOP voting base. Answers have focused on a variety of possible answers, including demographics, personality characteristics, and racial/identity attitudes. There is some evidence that there may be another factor at play, however: “American” ancestral self-identification.

The U.S. Census Bureau regularly asks Americans a version of this question: “What is this person’s ancestry or ethnic origin? (For example: Italian, Jamaican, African Am., Cambodian, Cape Verdean, Norwegian, … and so on.)” While most Americans indicate ancestries originating in Europe, Africa, or Latin America, in the 2010 Census about 20 million people (or 6.5 percent of the population) indicated “America” or “United States” as their place of “ancestry or ethnic origin.” Most of these individuals are obviously not Native Americans, but rather white Americans who for one reason or another choose to report that their ancestors came from America. Some have referred to this group as “unhyphenated Americans” as they reject labels such as “German-American,” or “Irish-American.” (See here and here for more information.)

Scholars have offered a variety of causal factors related to this “unhyphenated American” phenomenon among white Americans including education, patriotism and national loyalty, Evangelical religious identification, or a perceived threat to American culture and identity. My own research (forthcoming in Social Science Quarterly) points to a strong influence of racial context and attitudes.

An examination of Census data reveals that the majority of these unhyphenated Americans are concentrated largely in the Southern and Appalachian regions of the United States:

Compare the map in the link above to the geographical distribution of Donald Trump supporters in the GOP electorate:

Of course, correlation is not causation and this possible connection is based entirely on aggregate data patterns making it impossible to conclusively link ancestral self-identification to voting patterns using only this information… but it is hard to ignore the similarities in the geographic concentration of unhyphenated Americans and Donald Trump supporters.

Donald Trump’s campaign slogan has is “Make America Great Again.” Perhaps this resonates with unhyphenated Americans who actively reject all non-American identities (even ancestral identities) and respond positively to his nativist, authoritarian rhetoric.

Note: this article was originally published in the Huffington Post; this version includes the graphics.

My quick take on the 2016 Iowa Caucus results

Since people are asking me about it today… here’s my quick take on the Iowa Caucus results last night:

The “political science” perspective is that one key way that Iowa Caucus results matter is in driving the media narrative that emerges the week afterwards leading up to the New Hampshire primary. Objective results matter less than results compared to expected results. Those who over-perform relative to expectations get a boost from both media and donors which gives them an additional boost going into the NH primary while those who under-perform suffer from less media attention and fewer donors than they were getting before. (See Why Iowa, chapters 7-8, see also Vox’s write-up.)

Based on this I make the following quick observations:

Marco Rubio is probably the biggest winner from last night: over-performing relative to expectations in the range of 5-8%. I expect that he’ll get a boost in media coverage and that this will translate into a boost in his New Hampshire performance, putting him in a good position for the rest of the primary campaign.

Donald Trump is probably the biggest loser, as all the media hype was about him possibly winning Iowa. By losing (even though he came in a strong second), he under-performed relative to expectations (by about 7-ish%) and this may translate into a lower performance in New Hampshire than he might have otherwise had if he had won Iowa.

Ted Cruz’s performance is maybe a draw, perhaps a slight advantage. He was polling well in Iowa and did about as well as expected in the media narrative leading up to last night’s Caucuses. The real question is whether he can do well in northeast New Hampshire or whether this was his high-water mark like Rick Santorum in 2012 or Mike Huckabee in 2008.

On the Democratic side, I’d say it’s roughly a draw between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, both objectively and relatively, with perhaps a slight edge to Sanders. Hillary Clinton was expected to win by 3-5% leading up to the Caucuses and she ended up barely squeaking out a win of 0.29%. Given that O’Malley dropped out last night, I think that Sanders will pick up most of his 2-ish% in New Hampshire and likely win by a respectable margin. The real test for Sanders will be whether he can come in close in more diverse states like South Carolina and Nevada. If he gets trounced in those two states it’s likely an easy path for Hillary Clinton to the nomination.

Back on the Republican side, my hunch is that it will soon boil down to either a drawn-out Rubio-Trump contest or a Rubio-Cruz contest, depending on which way things shake out in the next few primaries… unless either Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, or John Kasich can somehow edge out a very strong second or third showing. If not, it’s Rubio or bust for Republicans who want to win this fall.