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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14h

This is totally a thing people do, but it can be messy because 80% of the answer to "what's driving votes" is always "partisanship"

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14h

Nah I think that read is about right, just complicated because IRL you are dealing with both what voters like AND what will actually get covered

Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17h

Very important to periodically step back from the niche factional fights and remember that you mostly agree and everyone is doing their best. In person meetings also very good for this!

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17h

Every time I get frustrated by chaos in the broad liberal coalition, Republicans go and do some shit like this and remind me that everyone i argue with is at least trying to make the world better, usually pretty nice, and not nearly this gross

Politico @politico.com · 18h

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of leaked messages show leaders of Young Republican groups joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape in a private Telegram chat.

Inside rising GOP leaders’ racist chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than 7 months👇

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17h

Sorry for all the text, lol, I have survey thoughts and feelings

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17h

Imo the revealed preference is usually that you get more juice out of an issue that is surprising to be associated with a given partisanship, but it's super sensitive to the framing. Using messages ("a candidate who says blah") is better but even more sensitive

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17h

I'm currently doing zero modeled out results for Searchlight for transparency reasons , but it's common for folks to run this as a max diff or just toss it into a regression. Works okay!

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17h

Hm, like a "D who is focused on [issue]/R who is focused on [other issue]" thing? I've tried it in other work, it's interesting but I don't love it. Mostly because voters can interpret issues very differently when they have a partisanship attached

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 5d

Oof. Yikes! Not good!

Rachel Porter @rachelporter.bsky.social · 5d

Just published at PNAS (@pnas.org): “Electing amateur politicians reduces cross-party collaboration”

We show that districts electing first-time members of the U.S. House experience substantial declines in bipartisan representation in the subsequent Congress.

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Reposted by Charlotte Swasey

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 5d

The #1 piece of advice that TransLink's CEO offers other North American transit agencies:

Provide frequent service

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 5d

This goes beyond policy choices into vibes- what sort of life do Americans think each party is promoting? Mostly, not a very good one

Full writeup here from me @searchlightinst.bsky.social www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/che...

Checking In On Party Vibes

A topic of particular interest at Searchlight is how Americans engage with the two major parties. We’re curious about what draws people to each party, and what they believe each party does best.

www.searchlightinstitute.org

Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 5d

There's skepticism that *either* party wants you to have the markers of a good life, but it's worse for Democrats (even among Democratic voters)

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 5d

People don't believe that Democrats want them to have a good life

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 11d

Today: arguing that Sherrill might lose in NJ, and also why you probably shouldn't put too much faith in that guess (or any guess). Come stare at graphs, on the blog

open.substack.com/pub/cauldron...

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 13d

This whole NY policy debate kind of blows my mind given that I recently disconnected and reconnected our gas range. It was a little annoying (like, a good wrench, some leverage, the right pipe tape) but not *hard*.

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 13d

I found this pretty persuasive. Maybe there's some evidence of real harm from the current regulatory status quo but doesn't really seem to be.

www.joshbarro.com/p/this-is-th...

This Is the Kind of Overregulation that Makes New York Unaffordable

The city council's plan to require plumbers to install all gas appliances in the city is an obstacle to Zohran Mamdani's pledge to freeze rents

www.joshbarro.com

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Reposted by Charlotte Swasey

Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 15d

Great poll result from a very good @lakshya.splitticket.org piece today in The Argument. A lot of people think AI has been good for them but bad for others. www.theargumentmag.com/p/chatgpt-an...

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 19d

Many such cases

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 21d

Analytics and polling folks: I'll be at the Harvard political analytics conference this Friday if you want to get coffee or something

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 21d

Oh totally. Voters love a villain. There's probably something clever you can do with framing new housing as breaking investor control but like oof it's messy!

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 21d

I will commission the Searchlight graphic designers for a giant sign that says "do it you coward", it'll be multi purpose

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 21d

I mean, Sirota is being a dick, but also I understand the abundance theory to be "it will work to lower prices and then voters will be happy"

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 21d

Good policy and good politics are often not the same which is awkward

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 21d

But I also read this as "you should probably not try to explain your specific plan to fix stuff and hope voters like the process" because they don't care (ie, abundance)

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 21d

Imo it's both salience and positioning. Voters always want things to be magically fixed without tradeoffs, and the way they get information about issues is super messy. However, that info still does come from things that happen in the world

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 22d

Mm, I think voters do have policy beliefs, even if they're not thought out or coherent. I.e. I think many voters want a reduction in illegal immigration, even if they don't like the policies that would actually get there

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