As Trump urges MAGA governors to redraw maps for partisan gain, Virginia took action—passing a temporary measure to help level the playing field this fall.
We are proud to lead the research and messaging behind this win to protect democracy. www.politico.com/news/2026/04...
Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet. Thanks for showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.
Title page of our paper, “The Politics of Black Classification: Sociopolitical Cues and Racial Perception,” with Lauren Davenport (Stanford) and Hunter Rendleman (UC Berkeley), dated April 14, 2026. Abstract: What makes someone Black in American society today? From Donald Trump questioning Kamala Harris’s racial identity to Joe Biden’s claim that hesitant Black voters “ain’t Black,” American politics frequently brings questions of racial authenticity and belonging to the surface. Yet political science often approaches race as a fixed attribute rather than a social construction. Here, we seek to understand how Americans define blackness in social and political life. Using a conjoint experiment with a racially diverse sample that includes Black, white, and mixed race Black-white respondents, we evaluate how ascribed and acquired traits influence perceptions of blackness. The results show that inherited characteristics—particularly parentage and skin tone, which are the strongest determinants of racial classification—play a central role, while sociopolitical cues such as partisanship, neighborhood context, and spousal race also influence racial classification. Using a continuous measure, we also show that respondents make graded assessments of blackness rather than purely binary classifications, with some individuals perceived as more Black than others. Black respondents are more likely than white respondents to classify a broader set of profiles as Black, consistent with a more inclusive understanding of racial membership, yet they also place greater emphasis on shared political identity. These findings clarify how racial categories are socially constructed and why that construction carries real political and social consequences.
Our paper, “The Politics of Black Classification: Sociopolitical Cues and Racial Perception” (w/ Lauren Davenport & @hrendleman.bsky.social), has been conditionally accepted at Perspectives on Politics!
Sharing abstract below. Long time coming, but we are really proud of this paper.
More soon!
The Blackness scale might be one of my favorite parts of the paper. People often talk about identity as continuous (“She’s Black, but she ain’t Black Black”), so we developed a way to capture that perception. We then estimate how much different traits predict those ratings.
Carleton is a wonderful school and community and Northfield a special place
Me: Higher ed is in terrible shape
Fact check:
BREAKING GOOD NEWS: There is a house at @carleton.edu where you can bake cookies at basically any time. I spent 12 straight hours in the kitchen and came back for breakfast the next morning: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/d...
Been working on this. As someone who has helped organizer their fare share of protests I won't pretend as if the results don't disappoint but the data is the data.
That said, I do believe that protests have a lot of impacts that are hard to measure...
A table of YouGov polling data with the headline: "How many dinosaurs can Americans name off the top of their head?." The chart has the sub-headline: "Please name as many types of dinosaur as you can off the top of your head (% of Americans who say they can name at least one dinosaur who name each number of dinosaurs)." The chart has the note: "Note: An AI model classified open-ended responses to count the number of dinosaurs named. Misspelled dinosaurs were counted, but mentions of groups of dinosaur species (such as "sauropod") were not. The number of dinosaurs Americans thought they could name comes from the question, "Off the top of your head, how many different types of dinosaurs do you think you could name?" "
We also asked respondents how many dinosaurs they could name off the top of their head — and then promptly asked them to do name 'em.
84% named fewer dinosaurs than they said they could just seconds before. Only 2% named more. (Admittedly, some respondents may have tried harder than others.)
Reminder that the Biden admin was bringing us a free online filing program, but then Trump/Musk killed it before it had a chance to be expanded to everyone:
Faith of Beasts.
Officially out tomorrow, though a bunch of stores have let it slip out early.
Just a reminder…
This is tomorrow! It will be fun! At least one of the previous statements is objectively true!
This is partly why compellence (getting a country to do something it doesn't want to do, or undo what it has already done) is so hard: you need to be able to provide *assurance* that you will accept their actions and refrain from further punishment, etc. See @reidpauly.bsky.social's book!
The only consistent throughline of this administration’s foreign policy is a absolute refusal to even once look down the game tree
NARRATOR: WE DID NOT IN FACT GET IT TOGETHER IN TIME
Check out @laginagause.bsky.social, Devin Wright, and Chris Stout study on how #HBCUs improve descriptive representation for Black people in “The Link Between Educational Socialization, Descriptive Representation, and Substantive Representation,” buff.ly/VrSPY59 #BHM #polisky
Political psych colleagues: The APSA Political Psych Pre-conference is back this year with a new and exciting format. Please consider presenting your work and registering. More info here: apsa-polpsych-preconf.org
Now I’m even sadder I’m missing this year!
ITS GREAT. TO BE. A MICHIGAN WOOOOOLLLLLVERINE ITS GREAT….
It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine
Isaac Chotiner: You say the two cats who live in your house are "Jerks" and you don't care for them
Me: Absolutely. They are the burdens of my life
Chotiner: It seems you spent an hour searching for special food for them and paid more for it than you do even for your own food.
Me: That's--Hold on,
Also true of research in general, where serendipity is often the source of discovery
“The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing.”
Good essay from a field far beyond me. I think the challenge travels, though.
Finding ways to use AI tools that help us engage with data/content more, instead of less, is critical.
This is so, so well-articulated.
Survey researchers of blue sky! Behold: the cursed survey!
Congrats to Katie Drapcho on being named to AAPC’s 40 Under 40 🎉
Katie has shaped winning messaging in marquee races like Gov Spanberger’s big win last November and is working on many more this fall including Gov Hochul and others — her work reflects the rigor that define the best in our field.
We also brought home two Pollie Awards for excellence in polling:
🏆 Best in Polling for Regional Campaign (Pennsylvanians for Judicial Fairness)
🏆 Best in Polling for Ballot Initiative (Save Maine Absentee Voting)
Grateful to our clients and partners. These wins are shared.
This year’s AAPC Pollie Awards marked a major moment for GSG and our partners!
GSG Partner Angie Kuefler was named Pollster of the Year—one of the top honors in our industry.
GSG Vice President Katie Drapcho was named to AAPC’s 40 Under 40, recognizing her leadership across high-profile races.
