For an overview of my previous, current, and future projects, download my research statement.

For a complete list of my papers and presentations, see my CV.

Selected Recent Papers

“Whose Issue Is It Anyway? A New Look at Party Labels and Candidate Evaluations”
Revise and resubmit at Public Opinion Quarterly.
Synopsis: What makes an issue good for a candidate to emphasize? I propose an alternative theory of issue advantages in which voters consider both positions and competence when evaluating parties and candidates on issues, and use party labels as heuristics in the absence of candidate-specific information.

“Cross-Pressure Scores: A New and Improved Measure for an Old Concept”
With Joshua A. Tucker and Ted Brader. Revise and resubmit at Political Behavior.
Synopsis: We develop a new method for estimating cross-pressures, incorporating myriad group memberships in a single cross-pressure score reflecting influences from both social interactions and policy preferences. Suitable for multiparty contexts and with only minimal data requirements, our measure allows for cross-pressures to be studied more widely than is currently possible.

“The Meaningful Effects Hypothesis: Informing, Persuasion, and Vote Choice in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Campaigns”
Currently under review.
Synopsis: Though campaigns are a ubiquitous feature of democratic elections, evidence that they have any impact on votes remains scarce. I aim to clarify our understanding of campaign effects by looking at the role of issue advertising in the 2000 and 2004 US presidential elections, and the results offer a very different picture of campaign effects than seen in previous studies.

“Cross-Pressures and Political Participation”
With Joshua A. Tucker and Ted Brader. Currently under review.
Synopsis: Early researchers coined the term cross-pressures to describe conflicting influences on individuals’ political preferences. We consider the effects of both social cross-pressures (from interactions in one’s social network) and issue cross-pressures (from holding policy preferences which cut across ideological lines) on various forms of political participation.

Selected Conference Presentations and Invited Talks

“Explaining the Paradox of Issue Convergence: A Closer Look at the Content and Strategy of Campaign Messaging”, American Political Science Association, September 2011 (Slides)

“Cross-Pressures and Political Participation”, with Joshua A. Tucker and Ted Brader, American Political Science Association, September 2011 (Slides)

“The Meaningful Effects Hypothesis: Informing, Persuasion, and Vote Choice in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Campaigns”, Society for Political Methodology, July 2011 (Poster), American Association for Public Opinion Research, May 2011 (Slides)

“Taking Campaign Strategy Online: Using Candidate Websites to Advance the Study of Issue Emphasis”, American Political Science Association, September 2010 (Slides)

“Whose Issue Is It Anyway? Moving Beyond Issue Ownership Toward a Broader Understanding of Campaign Strategy”, Midwest Political Science Association, April 2010 (Slides)

“Issue Advantages in Targeted Campaigns: What a Closer Look at Issue Positions Can Reveal About Campaign Strategy”, Society for Political Methodology, July 2009 (Poster)

“The Cross-Pressured Citizen: Revisiting Social Influence on Voting Behavior”, with Joshua A. Tucker and Ted Brader, Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, Princeton University, May 2009 (Slides)