AMERICAN POLITICS & PUBLIC POLICY WORKSHOP
Abstract: Has U.S. politics become increasingly nationalized in recent years? We use precinct-level election results, including many nonpartisan races and ballot measures, from 16 states over the past 25 years to study the relationship between national, state, and local contests. We find some preliminary evidence that national partisanship in state ballot measures has increased during this period. However, the relationship between national partisanship and local contests has been relatively stable. We also investigate the variation in partisan nationalization across ballot measure topics and office types. We also use cast vote record data from 2020 and exit poll data starting in 1996, to help justify the use of precinct level data. More specifically, we show that for nonpartisan offices and ballot measures, with enough precincts and variation in Democratic vote share across precincts, the estimated coefficients from Goodman-type regressions correlate highly with those from individual level regressions. (Joint work with Joseph R. Loffredo, Mason Reece and James M. Snyder, Jr.)
Shigeo Hirano is a Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. His research interests include American politics, comparative politics, and political economy, with a special focus on elections and representation. He is co-author of the book Primary Elections in the United States.
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