This is such a cool menorah!

Happy Hanukkah!

Thanks Miranda!!

Now "Ahead of Print" at JOP! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

I’m hiring a full-time predoc for 2026-2027! Please encourage your quant-minded students with strong interests in American politics to apply. They’ll be part of our vibrant community of CSAP/Tobin predocs who take PhD courses, present OG/collab research, & more. tobin.yale.edu/opportunitie...

Thank you!

Thank you!! Your excellent Forum article on donor nationalization is cited!

Thank you friend!!

contributing to Discourse™️ must always remain priority one!!

The stark results have wide-ranging implications for many existing studies. Importantly, however, these new estimates allow us to be specific about *in which domains* different conclusions (re: extremism, polarization, responsiveness, nationalization, etc.) may or may not hold.

Q: Is extremism financially beneficial in primary elections?

A: Financial returns to extremism are comparable to electoral returns. While primary fundraising share decreases w/ $ network extremism, campaign platform extremism is, if anything, financially beneficial in primaries.

Q: Is extremism electorally beneficial in primary elections?

A: All else equal, Dems' & Reps' primary vote share decreases with $ network extremism. However, no penalty is apparent for Reps' campaign platform extremism, & platform extremism is actually *beneficial* to Dems.

Q: Are candidates still responsive to their districts?

A: Both Dem & Rep campaign platforms are more liberal in more heavily Dem districts. However, Dem $ networks are actually *less* liberal in more heavily Dem districts, & no relationship is apparent for Rep $ networks.

Using text scaling, I estimate campaign platform positions of the thousands of candidates who ran in House primaries from 2016-2024. These hand-collected data were a labor of love that occupied most of my PhD + my senior year of college (yes, I was fun at parties...)

🚨 TL;DR: I show that measuring candidates' positions more directly leads to vastly different conclusions about our current era than those reached with predominant measures.

❓Are candidates still responsive to their districts? Is extremism electorally & financially rewarded in primary elections? These questions are the subject of important ongoing debates, yet most existing (mixed!) evidence relies on indirect measures of candidates' positions.

Delighted to discover that "Candidate Positions, Responsiveness, and Returns to Extremism" is now available online from JOP 🧵
@thejop.bsky.social

Gated: journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Ungated: mellissameisels.com/files/MM_PCP...

Very fortunate to be teaching Special Interest Politics in the US this semester!

My Twitter account got hacked, so I guess now is as good a time as any to transition over here!