research

publications

• "Candidate Faces and Election Outcomes: Is the Face-Vote Correlation Caused by Candidate Selection?"
  (with Matthew Atkinson and Ryan Enos). 2009. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 4 (3): 229-249.
• "Legislative Malfeasance and Political Accountability."
  (with Eric Chang and Miriam Golden). Forthcoming, World Politics .
• "Economic Crisis, Iraq, and Race: A Study of the 2008 Presidential Election."
  (with Michael Herron and Jeff Lewis). Forthcoming, Election Law Journal .

honored papers

• "The Duration of Advertising Effects in Political Campaigns."
  (with James Lo, Lynn Vavreck, and John Zaller) Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 2, 2007.Winner of the Lazarsfeld Award for best paper, Political Communication Section.

dissertation

• "Changing Composition and Changing Allegiance in American Elections."
• Committee:
  • Jeffrey Lewis (chair), UCLA Political Science
  • Jim DeNardo, UCLA Political Science
  • Lynn Vavreck, UCLA Political Science
  • John Zaller, UCLA Political Science
  • Mark Hansen, UCLA Statistics
• Abstract:
  • Aggregate models of election outcomes portray a stable electorate where partisan identification and economic performance largely determine vote choice. These models, however, often do not address significant variation in voter participation and preferences both within and across elections. I investigate these sources of electoral change: how much of the variation in electoral outcomes can be explained by changes in the set of voters who participate, and how much by changing preferences? For example, when Republican George W. Bush loses California in 2004 but Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger wins in 2006, is it due more to a change in the set of citizens who turn out or to changing allegiance of continuing voters? Explaining electoral change has interested scholars for decades (Key 1955, 1966, Campbell 1960, Campbell, Converse, Miller, \& Stokes 1960). I merge individual turnout records with ballot data for tens of millions of registered voters to show that change in turnout explains five to seven times less electoral change than change in preference. While change in turnout does influence who wins elections, my analysis suggests that the changing minds of habitual voters are a greater contributor to electoral change.

working papers

• "The Duration of Advertising Effects in the 2000 Presidential Campaign."
  (with James Lo, Lynn Vavreck and John Zaller) Presented at the MPSA Annual National Conference, Chicago, April 3, 2008.
• "The Opt-in Internet Panel: Survey Mode, Sampling Methodology and the Implications for Political Research."
  (with James Lo, Lynn Vavreck and John Zaller) Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 14, 2007.
• "Guarding the Guardians: U.S. Senate Oversight of Foreign and Defense Policy, 1947-2004."
  (with Linda L. Fowler) Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, September, 2006.

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