In earlier work, we created Congressional common space scores for multiple state legislatures using bridge actors who served in both institutions. Here, we employ simulations to explore the general issues involved in bridging institutions in data-sparse environments, where only a few bridge...

Over the several decades, observers of American politics have noted the sharp increase in partisanship and ideological polarization among members of Congress. While better ideological differentiation may provide voters clearer choices and increase accountability, the results of recent partisan...

Income inequality and political polarization have both increased dramatically in the United States over the last several decades. A small but growing literature has suggested that these two phenomena may be related and mutually reinforcing: income inequality leads to political polarization, and...

Many theoretical and empirical accounts of representation argue that primary elections are a polarizing influence. Likewise, many reformers advocate opening party nominations to non-members as a way of increasing the number of moderate elected officials. Data and measurement constraints,...

Using new data on roll-call voting of U.S. state legislators and public opinion in their districts, we explain how ideological polarization of voters within districts can lead to legislative polarization. So-called "moderate'' districts that switch hands between parties are often internally...

The development and elaboration of the spatial theory of voting has contributed greatly to the study of legislative decision making and elections. Statistical models that estimate the spatial locations of individual legislators have been a key contributor to this success (Poole and Rosenthal 1997;...

A large class of theoretical models posits that voters choose candidates on the basis of issue congruence, but convincing empirical tests of this key claim remain elusive. The most persistent difficulty is obtaining comparable spatial estimates for winning and losing candidates, as well as...

Party polarization is perhaps the most significant political trend of the past several decades of American politics. Many observers have pinned hopes on institutional reforms to reinvigorate the political center. The Top Two primary is one of the most interesting and closely-watched of these...

A large class of theoretical models posits that voters choose candidates on the basis of issue congruence, but convincing empirical tests of this key claim remain elusive. The most persistent difficulty is obtaining comparable spatial estimates for winning and losing candidates, as well as...

Economists recommend Pigouvian taxes as the most efficient way to fight climate change. Yet, carbon taxes are difficult to implement politically. To understand why, we study Washington State's two failed carbon tax referendums from 2016 and 2018—the first such votes in the United States. We...