Research

U.S. Public Opinion and Policy

Representing the Countryside: Rural Responsiveness in Wisconsin Policymaking. with Spencer Kiesel and Adam Scott Kunz. In progress.

ABSTRACT: Public policymaking is often faced with the task of balancing the interests of rural and urban constituencies. Yet, as rural voters have increasingly mobilized to voice their preferences and exert collective influence on the political process, public policy appears to be increasingly willing to ignore or even sacrifice rural interests to support those of urban constituents. This lack of “rural responsiveness” is particularly relevant to Wisconsin, a state with significant rural and urban constituencies in a politically competitive environment. We propose to examine rural responsiveness, both as reflected by Wisconsin elected officials and as perceived by rural Wisconsinites. Our study proposes a mixed-methods approach, combining surveys, focus groups, and legislative data to assess the degree of congruence between public opinion and policy decisions. The results of this research will provide an important insight into whether and how rural Wisconsinites are “being heard.”

“God in the Country: Religiosity and Political Behavior in Rural America.” with Spencer Kiesel in The Politics of Rural America: No Longer Fly Over Country, eds. Karen M. Kedrowski and Leah Murray. In Print.

ABSTRACT: Small-town, rural America has long been stereotyped and depicted in both popular media and casual conversation as a place where religion dominates and informs many if not every facet of life. Yet, the extent to which a relationship persists between religion and rural political behavior is less established and more assumed. We examine what relationship, if any, exists between religiosity and the political preferences of rural Americans, and compare any rural-religious link with non-rural religious and nonreligious counterparts. Using data from the Cooperative Election Survey, we find rural identity has independent effects from religiosity in shaping key measures of political behavior.

“The Impacts of LGBTQ Studies on Political Science.” in SAGE Handbook on LGBTQ Studies: Volume One: Foundations and Consolidations, ed. Nael Bhanji, Momin Rahman, Markus Thiel, and Denise Tse-Shang Tang. In Print.

ABSTRACT: Is the study of queer politics really political science? This chapter addresses that question through the examination of queer-focused research in three areas central to the study of U.S. politics: policy change, public opinion, and campaigns and elections. In each area, a review of the research demonstrates both how the study of queer politics fits neatly in exploring common themes and questions investigated by scholars who approach these areas without an explicit focus on queer subjects, and how the study of queer politics can contribute unique insights to core questions of study in political science. The chapter concludes by highlighting opportunities for future research examining queer people and politics, providing a resounding affirmative answer to the chapter’s motivating question.

“Critical Cues: U.S. Public Sympathies for Israel and Palestine.” with Evan Sandlin. 2026. Politics, Groups, & Identities. 1-25.

ABSTRACT: U.S. public opinion has traditionally supported Israel in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. However, in recent years, support for Israel has declined, especially among younger left-leaning Americans. At the same time, Israel has received unprecedented criticism from international human rights organizations and left-wing Jewish-American organizations for its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, particularly with respect to its military campaigns in Gaza. Has critical information from these sources helped shape U.S. public opinion of the conflict? We conduct a survey experiment analyzing the extent to which information from Human Rights Watch and Jewish Voice for Peace impacts views of who is to blame for the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict. We find individuals who are treated with criticism of Israel from Jewish Voice for Peace or are informed of the death toll of the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict (which killed far more Palestinians than Israelis) to be more likely to blame Israel for the violence and to support U.S. foreign policy taking a more pro-Palestinian stance. The effects of the treatment are stronger amongst Democrats and independents than Republicans. These results demonstrate that critical cues from Jewish-American organizations and death-toll information negatively impact U.S. public opinion toward Israel.

“Interest Group Influence on Preferences for New Voting Rights Legislation in a Polarized Environment.” with Carlos Algara & Isaac D. Hale. 2025. Representation. 61(4): 721-732.

ABSTRACT: In an era of entrenched partisan polarization, meaningful policy debates are increasingly absent from U.S. political discourse. Instead, citizens often simply support the policy views endorsed by co-partisan elites. However, interest groups, organizations motivated more by policy outcomes than electoral results, also shape the public’s views about policy proposals and may have independent effects from those of partisan actors. We conduct a pre-registered survey experiment to explore how interest groups can influence public views about legislative proposals on voting rights. We use endorsement cues from the NAACP and the Heritage Foundation to assess how interest group positions affect the mass public’s preferences towards the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We find pro-voting rights reform cues increase support for the legislation, while anti-voting rights reform cues have no impact on support. These effects are concentrated among Democratic respondents.

“Police Violence and Public Opinion after George Floyd: How the Black Lives Matter Movement and Endorsements Affect Support for Reforms.” with Cheryl Boudreau & Scott A. MacKenzie. 2022. Political Research Quarterly. 75(2): 497-511.

ABSTRACT: What factors shape public opinion about government solutions to address police violence? We address this question by conducting a survey in which respondents express their opinions about actual proposals to reform police practices. Within the survey, we randomly assign respondents to receive the positions of traditional advocates (Black lawmakers) and/or opponents (law enforcement) of police reform efforts. Our results reveal broad bipartisan support for the proposals, but that information about groups that support or oppose these proposals polarizes partisans’ opinions. However, Democrats and even Republicans who support Black Lives Matter (BLM) express high levels of support for the proposals regardless of the information they receive. These results suggest that partisanship in the mass public is not necessarily a barrier to police reform efforts. A bipartisan majority of the public supports meaningful reforms, and any polarizing effects of elite signals are muted by Democrats’ and Republicans’ support for BLM.

“Unworthy Victims and Threatening Adversaries: Islam, Muslims, and United States Foreign Policy.” with Evan W. Sandlin. 2022. Social Science Quarterly. 103(5): 1019-1031.

ABSTRACT: We examine the role of how a hostile discourse toward Islam influences American public opinion regarding U.S. foreign policy actions toward Muslim populations and Muslim-majority nations. Using a survey experiment with two vignettes, we test how Americans’ foreign policy preferences are affected by Islamic identity. In the first vignette, a minority group is facing ethnic cleansing. Second, a country is developing chemical weapons. We find that Americans are less likely to see Muslim minorities abroad as under threat or to support costly foreign policy actions to assist them. We also find that Americans are more likely to see Muslim countries as threatening and to support the use of military force against Muslim states. Our evidence suggests that the political effects of Islamophobia are not restricted to domestic policy but include foreign policy preferences too.

“Police Violence and Public Perceptions: An Experimental Study of How Information and Endorsements Affect Support for Law Enforcement.” with Cheryl Boudreau & Scott A. MacKenzie. 2019. The Journal of Politics. 81(3): 1101-1110.

ABSTRACT: Incidents of police violence can undermine trust in legal authorities. Whether such incidents have this effect will depend on how citizens evaluate victims, the police, and public officials. Citizens’ evaluations may be shaped by information about (1) a pattern of police violence and (2) government responses. We study citizens’ reactions to police violence by randomly assigning these two types of information in the context of the Stephon Clark shooting in Sacramento. We find that information influences levels of blame for and trust in the police, but the effects depend on citizens’ race and whether they live in the community where the violence occurred. In contrast, information does not alter citizens’ perceptions of local police officer organizations and, in turn, their willingness to follow police endorsements in elections. These results suggest a catch-22 whereby police violence can diminish the standing of police personnel, but favorable local opinion preserves their political influence.

COVID-19 Public Opinion & Policy

“Polarized Perceptions: How Time and Vaccination Status Modify Republican and Democratic COVID-19 Risk Perceptions.” with Evan W. Sandlin. 2023. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties. 34(4): 624-642.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies show Republicans have lower risk perceptions of COVID-19 than Democrats. Has this gap in risk perception been consistent throughout the course of the pandemic? Using longitudinal data from the Understanding America Study’s Understanding Coronavirus in America longitudinal panel survey, we examine how time and vaccination status have changed Republican and Democratic risk perceptions of engaging in various activities (such as grocery shopping, visiting friends and family etc.) as well as risk perceptions of infection, hospitalization, and death due to COVID-19. We find that while Republicans have lowered their perceived risk of activity more than Democrats over time, vaccinated Democrats have lowered their perceived risk of infection, hospitalization, and death more than vaccinated Republicans. These results are robust to inclusion of media consumption and social media use. This divergence on the two measures of risk from COVID-19 may complicate leaders’ e orts to move on from the politics of the pandemic toward a return to“normal.”

“Incentivizing COVID-19 Vaccination in a Polarized and Partisan United States.” with Carlos Algara. 2023. Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law. 48(5): 679-712.

ABSTRACT: As COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out in early 2021, governments at all levels in the United States experienced significant difficulty in consistently and efficiently administering injections in the face of vaccination resistance among a public increasingly politically polarized on vaccination preferences before the beginning of mass vaccinations. Using an original conjoint experiment fielded to a nationally representative sample before the mass proliferation of COVID-19 vaccines, the authors examined how different incentives (e.g., employer mandates, state-organized or health care provider–organized vaccination clinics, and financial incentives) affect the public’s preference to get vaccinated. They also tested how financial incentive preferences correlated with self-reported vaccination intention using observational data from the June 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll. The authors found financial incentives positively influenced vaccine preferences among the mass public and all partisan groups, including Republicans who were initially “unlikely” to be vaccinated. The authors used the observational data to replicate their experimental findings, showing positive financial incentive attitudes positively correlated with self-reported vaccination disclosures. These results provide support for direct financial incentives, rather than other incentives, as being a valuable tool for policy makers tasked with alleviating vaccination resistance among a US mass public increasingly polarized along partisan lines.

“Assessing the Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccine Lotteries: A Cross-state Synthetic Control Methods Approach.” with Carlos Algara, Samuel J. Fuller, and Sara Kazemian. 2022. PLOS ONE. 17(9): e0274374.

ABSTRACT: Vaccines are the most effective means at combating sickness and death caused by COVID-19. Yet, there are significant populations within the United States who are vaccine-hesitant, some due to ideological or pseudo-scientific motivations, others due to significant perceived and real costs from vaccination. Given this vaccine hesitancy, twenty state governors from May 12th to July 21st 2021 implemented some form of vaccination lottery aiming to increase low vaccination rates. In the aftermath of these programs, however, the critical question of whether these lotteries had a direct effect on vaccination remains. Previous literature on financial incentives for public health behaviors is consistent: Financial incentives significantly increase incentivized behaviors. Yet, work done specifically on state vaccine lotteries is both limited in scope and mixed in its conclusions. To help fill this gap in the literature, we use synthetic control methods to analyze all 20 states and causally identify, for eighteen states, the effects of their lotteries on both first-dose and complete vaccination rates. Within those eighteen states, we find strong evidence that all but three states’ lotteries had positive effects on first-dose vaccination. We find for complete vaccinations, however, over half the states analyzed had negative or null effects. We explore possibilities related to these mixed results including the states’ overall partisanship, vaccine hesitancy, and the size of their lotteries finding null effects for each of these explanations. Therefore, we conclude that the design of these programs is likely to blame: Every state lottery only incentivized first-doses with no additional or contingent incentive based on a second dose. Our findings suggest that the design of financial incentives is critical to their success, or failure, but generally, these programs can induce an uptake in vaccination across diverse demographic, ideological, and geographic contexts in the United States.