Research
My interests in money, parties, and representation are driven by the simple notion that "she or he who pays the piper calls the tune." In other words, the sources of funding in politics affect the outputs of politics, whether those outputs are campaign messages on the airwaves, the strategic decisions of party organizations, or floor votes in Congress. My research highlights a number of consequences of this phenomenon: first, the nationalization of American politics, where the preferences of national donor pools exert pressure on roll call votes by members of Congress and national advertisers create increasingly homogenous messages to voters around the country; second, parties' cooperative behaviors that overcome legal barriers to explicit coordination between candidates and independent expenditure groups; and third, the ways in which race, gender, and religion interact with partisan political communications.
Publications
"2022 Nevada U.S. Senate Race: Cortez Masto Beats Back the Tide to Previal." (w/ David F. Damore) 2023. in The Roads to Congress 2022. Palgrave MacMillan. Cham, CH
In 2022, battleground Nevada was once again front and center. The state’s fiercely contested U.S. Senate election offered the Republican Party one of the best opportunities to flip a Democratically held seat, while mitigating the Democrats’ recent gains in the Mountain West. But, as was the case in the Mountain West states of Arizona and Colorado also with competitive U.S. Senate races, the Republicans fell short. Incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto narrowly defeated GOP challenger Adam Laxalt even as other Republicans contesting statewide races won. Nevada exemplifies a "blue metros, red states" dynamic that is realigning intra-state political competition along geographic, economic, demographic, and socio-cultural lines. Whereas Cortez Masto’s victory was largely a consequence of strong support in Nevada’s urban counties, Laxalt dominated the state’s rural swaths. The contest also demonstrates the expanding role of spending by national, outside groups seeking to use their financial muscle to shape voters’ decision making and the partisan divide over how elections are conducted and votes are cast.
"PACs and January 6th: Campaign Finance and Objections to the Electoral College Vote Count." (w/ Tanner Bates). 2023. Research & Politics 10(3): 1-7
Do members of Congress who receive more of their political contributions from organized interests demonstrate a greater adherence to democratic norms compared to members who receive more of their funds from individual donors? We analyze the campaign receipts of Republican House members in the 2020 campaign cycle and votes to object to electors for Joe Biden from Arizona and Pennsylvania to show that greater contributions to members’ campaigns from PACs are associated with a lower probability that members voted to object to electors. Further, members’ own margin of victory in 2020 has no association with these votes when controlling for other factors, but members from districts where Trump performed better are more likely to have objected to counting Electoral College votes for his opponent. Our results demonstrate a positive association between campaign contributions from PACs and support for democratic institutions within the Republican caucus in the U.S. House.
State of the Parties 2022: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Political Parties. (co-edited with John C. Green and David B. Cohen). 2022. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Lanham, MD
The State of the Parties 2022 brings together leading scholars of parties, elections, and interest groups to provide an indispensable overview of American political parties today. The 2020 presidential election was extraordinary. What role did political parties play in these events? How did the party organizations fare? What are the implications for the future? Scholars and practitioners from throughout the United States explore the current state of American party organizations, constituencies and resources at the national, state and local level.
"Nationalized Congressional Finance: Evidence from 2018 & 2020." 2022. in State of the Parties 2022: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Political Parties. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Lanham, MD
In this book chapter I identify and describe several trends in Congressional campaign finance. Most critically, when the message matters the most, the candidates have the least control over the message: candidates in competitive races control less than half of the spending in their own races. Parties and the independent expenditure groups closely managed by party leadership who together make up the bulk of outside spending are attentive to the expected closeness of the race in their spending decisions, but other independent expenditure groups are less responsive to candidate need in their allocation decisions. A recent trend of ideologically motivated donors "overfunding" nationally known challengers to high profile incumbents has grown in scale. The increasing prominence of highly motivated but poorly coordinated ideological donors is distorting the campaign finance landscape in a way that is difficult for parties to fully counteract.
"Out-of-District Donors and Representation in the US House." (w/ Brandice Canes-Wrone). 2022. Legislative Studies Quarterly. 47(2): 361-395
House members have become increasingly reliant on out-of-district individuals for fundraising. Yet we have little evidence on how such donations might affect representatives’ policy decisions. Given the high partisanship known to dominate House roll calls, do the preferences of individual donors influence policymaking at all? And are members who rely on out-of-district contributions more responsive to the preferences of the national donor base? This paper examines these and related questions, producing three main findings. First, even accounting for well-established partisanship in House voting, representatives are responsive to the policy preferences of the national donor base. Second, this donor responsiveness is positively associated with electoral safety, including when redistricting exogenously induces the safety. Third, the higher a member’s reliance on out-of-district donations, the greater is their responsiveness to the preferences of the national donor base. Together, these findings suggest that current fundraising dynamics skew representation in significant ways.
"A New Face to the Race Card? Campaigns, Racial Cues, and Candidate Credibility" (w/ Tasha S. Philpot). 2020. Social Science Quarterly. 101(1): 73-90
This research examines the effects of using positive racial imagery in the context of an electoral campaign. Using an experiment that was embedded in a survey conducted as part of the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find that Unlike negative stereotypical images that activate racial prejudice, positive racial images can be used to improve perceptions of a candidate’s perceived level of inclusivity and overall candidate evaluations. The ability to do so, however, is contingent on the racial attitudes of the subjects. This study provides new insight into how racial appeals can be made in campaigns as well as the relative rigidity and fluidity of political stereotypes.
"The Divided Labor of Attack Advertising in Congressional Campaigns." 2019. The Journal of Politics. 81(3): 805-819
In this article I specify how candidates and outside groups divide the labor of attack advertising in campaigns. An analysis of the tone of all broadcast television political advertisements in the 2010 and 2012 congressional elections shows that as outside groups come into a campaign they "carry the negative," primarily attacking opponents and allowing candidates to reduce their own proportion of advertising devoted to attack. In addition, attacks from outside groups are more likely than candidate-sponsored attacks to be policy-based attacks versus attacks on personal characteristics. These findings show that candidates benefit from this relationship with outside groups by being shielded from potential backlash. Furthermore, this compensatory arrangement mutes the degree to which outsiders make campaigns more negative, and when outsiders take a greater role in campaigns those campaigns will be more focused on policy matters and less focused on personal aspects of the candidates.
"The Gospel of Health Care Reform: The Role of the Social Gospel in Shaping Attitudes Towards Health Policy" (w/ Eric L. McDaniel). 2018. Politics and Religion. 11(2): 364–395
Most research on the social gospel, a religious interpretation that obliges people to care for the less fortunate and correct social inequalities, has focused on elite rhetoric. However, it is not clear the extent to which members of the public also adhere to this socioreligious philosophy. The moralistic tone of the 2010 health care reform debate has led many to argue that there is a revival of the social gospel. To what extent has this debate gained traction among citizens writ large? Which individuals will be most likely to be influenced by elite discourse that draws social gospel? Using two unique surveys and an experiment, we demonstrate that Social Gospel adherents have distinctive political attitudes. Specifically, they are more attentive to social policy issues and are more supportive of expanding the social safety net. Second, we demonstrate that elite rhetoric that draws from the Social Gospel tradition can influence policy preferences.
"Cooperative Media Spending in Senate Campaigns Post-Citizens United." 2017. The Forum. (15)2: 269-289
This article investigates whether independent groups distribute media expenditures in ways that mirror the objectives of parties, or if divergent interests cause independent groups to allocate these funds differently. Using a large original dataset of media spending in Senate campaigns from 2010 through 2014, this study specifies how a seat-maximizing strategy goes beyond simply directing money to the most competitive contests; it compensates for candidates with insufficient cash to meet the media demands of their race and passes by candidates with more ample resources. Holding other factors constant, as candidate spending on media decreases, outside group media spending in support increases. The observed pattern of outside group resource allocation reveals that outside group activity in the aggregate is consistent with the seat-maximizing strategy expected of parties and demonstrates precise knowledge of campaign conditions. One subgroup of outsiders however, issue-based independent groups, still seek out the closest contests but are not sensitive to candidate budgets.