Recent presidential elections in the United States have been characterized by sharp divisions between Democrats and Republicans on a wide range of issues along with high levels of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting. Voting patterns in these elections have been very stable — the same voter groups and the same […] Read more »
Are voters really guided by gender stereotypes? New research says no.
Kathleen Dolan is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the author of the recent book “When Does Gender Matter? Women Candidates and Gender Stereotypes in American Elections.” Her findings contradict a great deal of conventional wisdom about gender and elections. She kindly answered some questions […] Read more »
A deep dive into the news media’s role in the rise of Donald J. Trump
The media’s coverage of Donald Trump has become one of the most debated topics of the 2016 campaign. The debate centers on how, and how much, media coverage helped Trump as he rose the top of the polls and became the presumptive Republican nominee. This debate quickly (and typically) became […] Read more »
Don’t Assume Donald Trump’s Supporters Believe All His Words
Donald Trump keeps making promises that experts don’t think he can possibly fulfill. It might seem that he has people fooled by his implausible claims, which include pledges to make Mexico pay for a border wall and to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. … When it comes […] Read more »
Celebrities, Lies, And Outsiders: How This Election Surprised One Political Scientist
In the run-up to this election season, The Party Decides seemed to be on every political science nerd’s reading list. The 2008 book by political scientists Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller laid out how the invisible primary — party elites’ behind-the-scenes machinations before primary season — […] Read more »
The challenge of false beliefs
Misperceptions about politics and health can undermine public debate and distort people’s choices and behavior. Why do people hold these false or unsupported beliefs and why is it so difficult to change their minds? An emerging literature examines the difficulty of correcting false or unsupported beliefs and the reasons for […] Read more »