tomorrow is with one of the biggest election days of the year. there's so much to go over it's hard to know where to start.
so, let me help:
here are the *10* elections i'm watching the most closely, *at the state and local level* (=no federal elections included!)
🧵:
I know all eyes are on Minneapolis, but there's a fast-approaching nightmare in Springfield, Ohio.
Trump is revoking protected status for tens of thousands of Haitians living there on Feb. 3.
Reportedly, on Feb. 4, 1000 ICE agents are arriving to remove this population. Ethnic cleansing.
Post from Pete Buttigieg that reads: If there was ever a moment for libertarians and conservatives to step up and join the rest of us, we’re in it. Americans have to unite and stop this descent from a freedom-loving nation into the kind of place where masked, militarized government agents are sent to politically noncompliant areas to roam the streets, terrorize civilians, and deploy violence with impunity.
I am not being snarky. I need my colleagues who wrote on covid school lockdowns to engage with this. To be as loud as they have been about prior "learning loss." Hell, you can cite Tom & Mark's AERJ paper so you feel better that there's some econ somewhere in your argument.
This is such valuable advice and put plainly. Please take a moment.
TY @tressiemcphd.bsky.social
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
Congress scholar here. This is good advice.
For some reason, very few people these days will stand up and say it, but: the US federal bureaucracy is one of the great wonders of the world, staffed with incredibly diligent people who do their jobs well and care deeply.
Trump's destruction of the federal apparaus was a historic crime.
Explain to Congress how important it is to keep multiyear funding of NIH grants in the funding bill.
This protects against Russell Vought's trick, which is to make this year's NIH budget cover multiple years of research in advance.
Tell your Congresscritter. US Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.
APSA Ed Politics & Policy Virtual Conference Presentation Schedule is up! It is free to attend and will take place February 26th from 12:00 to 3:30pm EST. connect.apsanet.org/s51/events/
This beautifully written piece by my pal @adambonica.bsky.social is worth your time today.
A bit of light amid the darkness.
open.substack.com/pub/data4dem...
Stephen Colbert on the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good: “The message from this administration is clear. Only they determine the truth. And when their forces come to your city: obey or die. And if you die, you clearly didn’t obey. This should be an alarm bell for the entire country.”
To ring in the new year, I'm excited to announce the launch of the Politics of Education Lab (PEdL) at the Stanford GSE. The goal is to advance understanding of the political dimensions of education policymaking to help policymakers and practitioners strengthen school systems.
pedl.stanford.edu
When the 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson asked why “we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes,” he was identifying no mere contradiction, but liberty as it was imagined by men who owned other human beings as property. Slaveholders such as John Calhoun saw slavery as inseparable from their own freedom, and they worried that the false doctrine of abolitionism would eliminate that freedom away. “Already it has taken possession of the pulpit, of the schools, and, to a considerable extent, of the press; those great instruments by which the mind of the rising generation will be formed,” Calhoun said. (It seems the “woke mind virus” was telling lies about the great and benevolent institution of American slavery as far back as two centuries ago.) Defending slavery, however, required invasive uses of power, such as banning antislavery literature and returning escaped Black people to bondage. Many white Americans in the 19th century began to understand that the “Slave Power” curtailed their freedoms as well. And this is what many people forget: Systems of domination rarely spread their blessings widely. The Redemption-era revocation of Black freedoms didn’t result in prosperity for white people writ large, but a Gilded Age in which the upper classes gained unfathomable wealth and economic crises left millions destitute. The nation may have held on to white supremacy, but it also got low wages, a threadbare welfare state, and a society dominated by the rich. Everyone else was too divided by race and class to challenge them.
The right, along the Roberts Court, is trying to nullify the Reconstruction amendments guaranteeing equality under the law, in order to restore the Antebellum Constitution, which envisions “liberty” as an eternal aristocracy of race and class (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
Don’t look away. sahanjournal.com/immigration/...
Final day to submit an abstract!
I'm not exaggerating when I say following @boltsmag.org rn will unlock money for our journalism.
A generous reader, @russ41.bsky.social, has offered to donate $1 for every 1-person increase to our follower count.
If you're not following @boltsmag.org yet, it'll directly help fund our reporting!
Last Friday, Dr. Caitlin Jewitt, Associate Professor of Political Science, discussed and workshopped a chapter of her upcoming book as a part of the CAIR working group paper series! 📚
Join us on November 11th at 12pm for the latest installment of the Conversations in International Studies series!🗓️
Prof. Lorenza Violini's talk entitled, "Federalism in Context: The Strange Case of the European Union." 📚
Trying to figure out what #SCOTUS just did with #SNAP, and why Justice Jackson temporarily froze the district court's ruling?
Via "One First," me on what's going on—and why I think Jackson's move was savvy, notwithstanding the awful circumstances that forced it:
www.stevevladeck.com/p/190-snap-wtf
Came here to say this, but Jamelle Bouie has this covered. 👇
When the Democratic tent includes candidates like Spanberger and Mamdani, there is no crisis, or fight, for the party. IT’S A COALITION, NOT A POINT ESTIMATE.
The trend is real, but this NYT analysis at the Congressional district level has big ecological bias
Poor *areas* vote Republican, but it's often the richer *individuals* within those poorer areas that are most Republican
And many poor *individuals* rich blue urban *areas* vote Dem
NYT pushed its “Dems must go moderate” take again yesterday. In a new piece out today, @adambonica.bsky.social shows even more clearly why the data don’t support it. It also shows what a skilled empiricist and teacher Adam is.
Very proud of my pal’s public work.
open.substack.com/pub/data4dem...
Our Winter Education Politics & Policy Virtual Conference will take place on Wed. Feb 25, and Thurs., Feb 26, 2026 from 9am-12:30pm Pacific. We invite proposals from scholars at all stages of their careers. Please send us your proposal by Dec. 8th, 2025, using this form: forms.gle/2Ets9aj1YP9b....
George was just trying to get to work.
ICE pepper-sprayed him, dragged him from his car, locked him in a detention center, and placed him on suicide watch. He even missed his young daughter’s birthday in the process.
This man is a veteran and American citizen. Don't look away.
Government shutdowns offer a rare opportunity to un-submerge the submerged state. Something Democrats could/should be doing is every day of shutdown, pick some agency and focus on it for the day. Highlight what it does and what we're losing each day their staff are furloughed.
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
My new op-ed with @lkfazio.bsky.social:
Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain.
Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
This is lawless, inhumane, and cruel. It’s also official government policy personally endorsed by the president and his cabinet. The president may be immune but those who serve him are not.
