The Science of Politics

After President Trump bombed Iran, Democrats in Congress declared the action illegal. But it follows a long history of increased presidential control of military operations along with congressional deference and abrogation of war powers. How did we get here? Casey Dominguez finds that although the founders bestowed war powers with Congress, by the Spanish-American war legislators had expanded thei...

Politicians are launching outlandish negative attacks and Americans have developed more negative views of the other party. But how connected are polarizing politicians and a polarized electorate? Mia Costa finds that political elites have more polarized views of the other side than the public but they still benefit electorally and legislatively from avoiding negative partisan attacks. Divisive rhe...

Politics seems to be holding us back in a world of technological and social progress. Research has found health cures, invented magic new tools, and connected us all, often with public policy assistance. Yet, the American political system remains deeply divided and dysfunctional, with the relationship between science and government at a low point. Can we use social science not just to improve poli...

President Trump is claiming power over independent agencies and trying to redirect the administrative state, saying he is its unitary executive. But this is not the first time presidents have invoked broad authority. John Dearborn finds that President Reagan sought to gain power over civil rights agencies, saying they had gone too far in promoting affirmative action, restricting their activity and...

Donald Trump’s expansive executive action has been met with a flurry of court action, as Democratic officials and liberal interest groups challenge each action—with a lot of early success. Can liberals succeed in limiting Trump through the courts or are American courts an inevitably conservative institution? Paul Nolette finds that Democratic Attorneys General have banded together to fight Trump,...

Donald Trump has now unilaterally imposed huge global tariffs, upending the world economy. But we did get a preview of Trump’s trade approach in his first term, allowing researchers to analyze the political consequences. Thiemo Fetzer finds that China, the EU, Canada, and Mexico reacted to the first term tariffs strategically, trying to hurt Trump’s constituents. Omer Solodoch finds that the first...

The 2nd Trump administration has begun tearing down the administrative state, firing thousands, cancelling contracts, and shuttering agencies. But they have also used the power of the state to ramp up summary deportations, crack down on universities, and threaten prosecutions of their political opponents. So is this the culmination of Republican efforts to scale back government or a sign that they...

We have the parties that we said we wanted: they compete over extensive policy programs, with voters making decisions among clear issue position alternatives. But how did they get here and have they now gone too far? Katherine Krimmel finds that the American parties became extensively programmatic as they lost vestiges of clientelism and became national parties after federal growth and civil right...

Five years after the COVID lockdowns, the performance of government and policy experts is not looking great in retrospect. Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee find that policymakers dispensed with years of pre-pandemic planning that suggested the tools used to fight COVID would not work. Experts did not sufficiently consider the costs of their preferred approaches and spoke publicly of consensus while...

Courts are pausing dozens of Trump administration actions—from mass firings to agency shutdowns. But does the judiciary have a real enforcement mechanism? Will public faith in the courts mean Trump faces consequences in elections and public esteem or will that faith wilt as the judiciary is just seen as another partisan institution? Amanda Driscoll, Michael Nelson, and Jay Krehbiel find that Ameri...

While promising mass deportation and an immigration crackdown, Donald Trump gained Latino support in 2024, just as he had in 2020. Why do some Latinos support anti-immigration policies and candidates? Loren Collingwood finds that many Latinos separate themselves from recent immigrants as atypical of their group. But does that explain recent Democratic politician moves? He also finds that legislato...

American interest groups are increasingly lining up behind the Democratic or Republican Party and trying to build coalitions within those parties rather than across them. But historically, that has not been the most effective method to bring policy change. Jesse Crosson finds that interest groups are increasingly taking positions on issues outside their areas of expertise in an effort to unite the...

How did Americans become politically divided on culture war topics like guns, abortion, women’s role, gay rights, and environmentalism? The common story is that it took polarizers from the top: politicians and activists associated with each party moved the public to their respective sides. But Neil O’Brian finds that the culture war followed America’s racial realignment  because racial attitudes w...

Trump has promised to remake the federal bureaucracy in his own image and go after his political opponents and the media in his 2nd administration. But there are signals that public protest and civil society mobilization are subdued. How much do we have to fear further democratic backsliding under Trump 2? Brendan Nyhan finds expert consensus on many reasons to be concerned but also evidence that...

When Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, an outpouring of excitement among Indian Americans foretold potential gains for Democrats among Asian Americans, the fastest growing minority group. But Asian Americans neither turned out in record numbers nor moved toward Democrats. In fact, Indian Americans moved toward Trump. Janelle Wong has followed the trajectory and diversity of...

President Trump has made his picks for his second term cabinet more quickly and the transition is more organized and ready for Executive Branch action. Will hopes and fears of an executive reinvention be born out or will the difficulties of the first term show their face again? David Lewis finds that Trump’s first term choices did not go over well with career civil servants but that there was not...

Analysts previewing a second Trump administration say he will now have unchecked power, with compliant administrators and courts. But there is a long history of presidents using executive actions to claim more power than they have—with the bureaucracy surprisingly resilient to oversight and reinvention. Kenneth Lowande finds that unilateral presidential action is often used for credit claiming rat...

In this live episode of The Science of Politics, panelists examined the class, race, and gender dynamics that shaped the 2024 election. The panel features Tom Edsall, Amanda Iovino, Patrick Ruffini, and Ruy Teixeira. Did the election cement a class realignment of American politics? Did Republicans peel off minority voters based on changing perceptions of the GOP as a working-class party? And how d...

Polls missed the 2016 election outcome and did even worse in 2020 on the margin, underestimating Donald Trump again. Should we believe the polls this time? What have pollsters changed? Have they overcorrected? In an era of one percent response rates for phone surveys and opt-in Internet panels, should we even talk about them in the same way? Michael Bailey finds that our theories about random samp...

Pre-election polls show Black voters moving toward Donald Trump in 2024, even though he is now running against Kamala Harris. And Trump did gain a bit of margin among Black voters in 2020 compared to 2016, though he still loses nine out of ten. Should Democrats fear more attrition among Black voters this year or is it just a mirage from bad polling? Christopher Towler finds that Democrats made a l...

In the last 12 years, academic language about structural inequality made its way to media and popular discourse, leading to conservative critiques of “wokeness.” But how much really changed beneath the surface in our elite institutions? Musa Al-Gharbi finds that wokeness has peaked after it was the product of socio-economic trends in the professions. But he says it was mostly surface-level, visibl...

Presidential campaigns narrow the battleground to an ever-smaller group of potentially pivotal states—where they spend most of their time and money in the race to 270 electoral votes. How do presidential campaigns envision and select their paths to victory? And how much do these decisions matter? Daron Shaw takes us inside the presidential campaigns from 1952 to 2020, with data and analysis from t...

College-educated voters are moving toward the Democrats, with the less educated moving toward the Republicans. Will 2024 continue the pattern or reverse the trend? What will that mean for the culture war that has engulfed the nation and refocused the political parties? David Hopkins breaks down the consequences of the diploma divide, from woke business to the COVID wars. This is not just about pol...

After years of signs that the American parties were institutionally weak and vulnerable to takeover, Democratic Party elites coalesced to quickly replace their presidential candidate. But a longer historical sweep suggests it will not be a quick return to parties’ traditional roles. Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld find that Democrats and Republicans have become hollow shells, unrooted in civic...

Vice President Kamala Harris has replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. And the conversation has immediately turned to race and gender. What do we know about how Black and Asian women candidates are treated by parties and voters? How does the Harris experience compare to others running for office? What does it mean for her ability to win in November and inspire a new generation of more dive...