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Adam Bonica

Adam Bonica

@adambonica.bsky.social

26K followers 1.2K following 750 posts

Professor of Political Science at Stanford | Exploring money in politics, campaigns and elections, ideology, the courts, and inequality | Author of The Judicial Tug of War cup.org/2LEoMrs | https://data4democracy.substack.com .. more

Economics 26%

Political science 24%

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · Mar 11

🚨 New paper (with Kasey Rhee & Nico Studen). We use a new within-precinct design to isolate how ideology affects vote choice holding turnout fixed, analyzing 3.4M precinct observations across state & fed elections (2016-2022).

tldr: Ideological moderation affects vote shares, but not by much. 🧵⬇️

The Electoral Consequences of Ideological Persuasion: Evidence from a Within-Precinct Analysis of U.S. Elections

Most research on the electoral penalty of candidate ideology relies on betweendistrict or longitudinal comparisons, which are confounded by turnout and ballot c

papers.ssrn.com

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Linda J. Skitka, Scott L. Greer , and 8 more Anna O. Law, Linda J. Skitka, Scott L. Greer, Samuel L. Perry, Rosemary A. Joyce, Adam Bonica, Robert C. Richards, Rebecca Tushnet, Nazita Lajevardi, Stephen Pimpare, Michael Evans

Kevin Morris @kevintmorris.bsky.social · 1d

As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.

Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.

Reposted by Will Jennings, Stephen A. Meserve

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 4d

Hungary’s Orban seemed undefeatable a year ago.

Then Peter Magyar broke through with a powerful anti-corruption platform, rapidly consolidated the fractured opposition, and now leads Fidesz comfortably.

Anti-corruption defeats authoritarianism worldwide. It will work here, too.

Hungarian polling trends 2023-2026 showing Fidesz (orange line) declining from ~55% to ~40% while TISZA party (dark red line) rises from near 0% in early 2024 to ~44% by late 2025, surpassing Fidesz. Other opposition parties (DK, MM, Jobbik, etc.) remain below 10% throughout the period.

Reposted by Adam Bonica, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 6d

"Corruption is the Achilles' heel of authoritarians," says @adambonica.bsky.social, explaining why opposing corruption (including the legal kind) should be the center of anti-Trump/Democratic politics. So many insights here. newrepublic.com/article/2030...

Transcript: Anti-Corruption Politics Are The Way to Crush Trumpism

Stanford political scientist Adam Bonica says trying to be more moderate is a dead end for Democrats and the solution is for the party to be seen as fighting against corruption, oligarchy and other il...

newrepublic.com

Reposted by Erica Chenoweth, Thomas J. Hayes

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 7d

As Trump again ramps up attacks on judges as biased, consider: his own appointees rule against his admin 49% of the time. Republican appointees 65%. Reporters should ask: If the judiciary is biased, why do the judges he picked keep ruling against him?

Data visualization titled “Even Trump’s Own Judicial Appointees Rule Against His Administration Nearly Half the Time.” Top section shows 81 rulings against (49.1%) vs 84 for (50.9%) among Trump appointees. Middle section compares rulings by appointing party: Democratic appointees ruled against Trump 752 times vs 169 for; Republican appointees 232 against vs 126 for. Bottom section shows historical comparison - how other presidents’ appointees ruled on Trump cases: Biden appointees 252 against/46 for, Obama 368/91, Bush 62/23, Clinton 125/22, Reagan 88/19. Source: Federal Court Dockets from Courtlistener.com. Data from Jan 21, 2025 through Nov 11, 2025, lower federal courts only, Supreme Court not included.

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

9/🧵 What does this mean for Democratic strategy? All those debates about choosing between identity politics and economic populism? False premise. Young working-class voters with low racial resentment aren't choosing. They're ready for Medicare for All AND Black Lives Matter. Lean into the tide.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

8/🧵 And there's motivated reasoning everywhere. Conservatives want to believe they're winning the youth. Centrist Dems think the party needs to move right. Some progressives fear we're doomed. Consultants want to enter new expensive ad markets. Everyone finds anecdotes confirming their assumptions.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Colin F. Camerer

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

7/🧵 The loudest voices aren't the most representative. Every generation has extremists, but social media amplifies fringe movements beyond their size. A handful of young white nationalists create viral moments that crowd out broader trends. We mistake the exception for the rule.

Reposted by Nathan P. Kalmoe

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

6/🧵 Why does conventional wisdom miss this? We confuse electoral swings with attitude changes. Gen Z shifted 6 points toward Trump in 2024, suddenly pundits say they're "the most conservative generation in 50 years." Only 42% of Gen Z voted. We mistake turnout shifts for ideological transformation.

A horizontal bar chart titled “Generational Turnout: From 2020 to 2024 Rates” shows turnout rate changes among registered voters by generation and party affiliation. The chart includes four generational groups—Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X, and Boomer—and tracks changes from 2020 (dot) to 2024 (arrow tip), with Democratic turnout in blue and Republican turnout in red. Key trends: • Gen Z: Democratic turnout dropped by 13.7 percentage points (pp); Republican turnout dropped by 7.9pp. • Millennials: Democratic turnout fell by 5.6pp; Republican turnout fell by 0.3pp. • Gen X: Democratic turnout dropped 4.2pp; Republican turnout dropped 0.8pp. • Boomers: Democratic turnout declined 3.2pp; Republican turnout declined 1.4pp. A note below the chart explains that all groups saw turnout declines, but Democratic voters dropped off more steeply. A boxed summary highlights the consistent pattern: Republicans started from higher turnout and maintained more of their base, while Democrats experienced longer arrows (larger drop-offs) across all generations.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

5/🧵 Race divides the Democratic Party more than it does Republicans. Young Republicans remain almost as racially resentful as older Republicans. But among Democrats and independents, massive shifts. White Gen Z independents have lower racial resentment than Boomer Democrats.

Racial Resentment Among White Americans by Age and Party

A single line chart showing racial resentment scores for White Americans by birth year (1940–2000) split by party identification: Republican (orange), Independent (yellow), and Democrat (blue).
Y-axis shows resentment levels; X-axis shows birth year and approximate ages.

Republicans have the highest resentment across all cohorts, with scores increasing sharply among older generations and stabilizing at high levels. Independents occupy the middle, with a steady rise from younger to older cohorts. Democrats remain lowest, rising gradually among older birth years but maintaining a wide gap from Republicans and Independents. Shaded confidence bands widen for older cohorts.

Reposted by Clark Gray

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

4/🧵 The generational shift isn't just among white Americans. Young Asian and Hispanic Americans show the same pattern: dramatic declines in racial resentment across education, gender, geography, and religion. This is a broad, multi-racial generational transformation.

Racial Resentment Among Hispanic and Asian Americans by Birth Year and Demographics

This figure contains four line charts showing racial resentment scores (standardized 2-item scale) across birth years from 1940 to 2000 among Hispanic and Asian Americans, with separate trendlines for demographic subgroups.
Y-axis ranges from low to high resentment; X-axis shows birth year with approximate ages.

Education panel: Two lines show that non-college individuals consistently report higher racial resentment than college-educated individuals. Both groups trend upward from younger to older cohorts, with the gap largest among older generations.

Gender panel: Male and female lines rise gradually with older cohorts. Males show slightly higher resentment than females across most cohorts, though the gap narrows among older groups.

Geography panel: Four regional lines (South, West, Midwest, Northeast) show modest differences. The South and Midwest trend slightly higher than the West and Northeast, and all regions show increasing resentment among older cohorts.

Religion panel: Protestants display the highest resentment levels, followed by Catholics. Non-affiliated respondents have the lowest and flattest trend, with little increase across cohorts. Protestants show the steepest age-related rise.

At the bottom, the source notes this is from the 2024 Cooperative Election Study (CES) using GAM-smoothed trendlines.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

3/🧵 This generational trend is consistent across every demographic subgroup you can imagine. Non-college Gen Z men? Lower racial resentment than college-educated elder Millennials. The pattern holds across gender, geography, and religion. Young men and women are moving in tandem.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Rosemary A. Joyce, Erica Chenoweth , and 1 more Anna O. Law, Rosemary A. Joyce, Erica Chenoweth, Jonathan Hopkin

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

2/🧵 New piece with @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social in @NewRepublic: We analyzed 60,000+ respondents in the 2024 Cooperative Election Study. Gen Z has the lowest racial resentment of any generation. The generational shift overwhelms the education divide that supposedly defines modern politics.

The Shocking Truth About Gen Z Voters Is That They’re Pretty Great

Stop panicking: They are the most progressive generation ever, especially on race. If that surprises you, you’ve been listening to the wrong story.

newrepublic.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

Those claiming Dems should retreat on racial justice aren't hard-headed realists, they're pushing against the electoral tide rather than leaning into it. The story of Gen Z isn't about racist backlash or red-pilled young men. It's the most racially progressive generation in American history. 🧵

Racial Resentment Among White Americans by Birth Year and Demographics

This figure presents the same four-panel layout (education, gender, geography, religion) but for White Americans from birth years 1940 to 2000.

Education panel: A pronounced divide shows non-college Whites with substantially higher resentment across all cohorts, increasing sharply for older birth years. College-educated Whites rise more modestly but remain distinctly lower, especially among younger cohorts.

Gender panel: Male and female trendlines rise together, with women slightly higher in mid-century cohorts. Younger cohorts of both genders start lower and climb with age.

Geography panel: Regional lines separate clearly: the South is highest in resentment, followed by the Midwest. The West and Northeast show lower levels, with the Northeast consistently at the bottom. All regions slope upward toward older cohorts.

Religion panel: Protestants show the highest resentment, peaking among mid-century cohorts. Catholics sit in the middle. Non-affiliated Whites show the lowest resentment, especially among younger respondents, with a small rise among mid-century generations.

The figure notes CES 2024 data with GAM-smoothed trendlines.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 10d

The graft oozing out of every corner of this administration is incredible. According to @propublica.org, a $220 million DHS ad campaign awarded without competitive bidding went to consultants tightly connected to Kristi Noem.

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts

The company is run by the husband of Noem’s chief DHS spokesperson and has personal and business ties to Noem and her aides. DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rule...

www.propublica.org

Reposted by Adam Bonica, Jelena Subotić, Dana Howard

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 10d

Piece from me and @adambonica.bsky.social in @thenewrepublic.bsky.social today about Gen Z

They have bad taste in music but quite progressive political attitudes (even the men)

newrepublic.com/article/2030...

The Shocking Truth About Gen Z Voters Is That They’re Pretty Great

Stop panicking: They are the most progressive generation ever, especially on race. If that surprises you, you’ve been listening to the wrong story.

newrepublic.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 11d

Reading through these emails, I’m reminded of the saying: “You can’t con an honest man.” Epstein may not have understood grammar, but he sure understood that.

Reposted by Anna O. Law

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 12d

We’ve built two justice systems in the US—one that bends over backward to shield the wealthy and powerful, and another that comes down hard and fast on the poor and marginalized. Trump and Epstein show that it’s easier to squeeze a rich man through the eye of a needle than to see one sent to prison.

John Cluverius @johncluverius.bsky.social · 12d

The Epstein story gets a something that is tearing at the heart of the electorate: elite impunity. The idea that wealthy and powerful people can do terrible things *at scale* and face no consequences for them. Whatever political party actually stops it could rule the country for a generation.

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Will Jennings , and 7 more Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Will Jennings, Adam Bonica, Anne Norton, Mark Rice, Nelson Flores, Greg Linden, Brooke Harrington, Nathan P. Kalmoe

John Cluverius @johncluverius.bsky.social · 12d

The Epstein story gets a something that is tearing at the heart of the electorate: elite impunity. The idea that wealthy and powerful people can do terrible things *at scale* and face no consequences for them. Whatever political party actually stops it could rule the country for a generation.

Reposted by Adam Bonica

Jenny Shen @jennyqshen.bsky.social · 13d

"The Democratic base understands what’s at stake. Grassroots activists, organizers, and voters have shown they’re willing to fight. ... Until Democratic leaders can be made to fear cowardice more than they fear Republicans, the pattern will continue."

Every line in this piece is worth reading 👇

From Adam Bonica's On Data and Democracy Substack:

"730,000 federal workers went 41 days without pay. Families couldn’t make rent. TSA agents worked security checkpoints while wondering how to feed their kids. Food assistance for 42 million Americans hung in the balance.

Republicans created this suffering deliberately, then offered to stop, but only if Democrats surrendered completely.

Eight Democratic senators took the deal. They secured nothing: no policy concessions, no protective mechanisms, not even a binding commitment on healthcare. Just Republicans agreeing to temporarily stop the pain they were inflicting.

For many watching this unfold, there’s been a persistent frustration with Democratic leadership’s unwillingness to fight, coupled with an inability to fully articulate why capitulation feels so dangerous. This wasn’t a normal legislative compromise, but a pattern of submission to deliberate cruelty that makes the next act of cruelty more likely.

Authoritarians worldwide have discovered how to exploit a weakness in democratic opposition: they weaponize our compassion against our principles. It’s a nasty tactic but an effective one. Create unbearable suffering. Wait for your opponents’ empathy to overwhelm their resolve. Then offer relief in exchange for political surrender.

The authoritarian doesn’t need to win arguments or offer genuine compromise. They need only inflict enough pain that resistance becomes morally unbearable.

Republicans understood this perfectly. They denied federal workers their pay and threatened food aid for millions—not to achieve any policy goal, but to demonstrate their willingness to hurt people indefinitely. The cruelty was the strategy. They were testing how much innocent suffering Democrats would tolerate before breaking."

From Adam Bonica's On Data and Democracy Substack:

"To understand where this leads, study Viktor Orbán’s playbook in Hungary. When he returned to power in 2010, he manufactured crisis after crisis—economic emergency, migration panic, pandemic fear. Each time, opposition parties faced the same cruel calculus: resist and be blamed for deepening the crisis, or acquiesce and hope to fight another day.

Every surrender seemed rational. The crises were real. People suffered. The opposition couldn’t justify obstruction that would worsen immediate pain. So they voted for temporary emergency powers. They accepted limited executive authority. Orbán was teaching them to surrender. Each capitulation lowered the bar for the next. By the time they realized they needed to fight, they’d already given away the tools to resist. Hungarian democracy died through a series of reasonable-seeming surrenders to manufactured crises.

The shutdown deal represents precisely this kind of incremental collapse. Democrats secured nothing substantive, just a promise of a December vote on healthcare subsidies. Not actual policy. Not binding commitments. A vote that will almost certainly fail, leaving them in an identical position next month."

From Adam Bonica's On Data and Democracy Substack:

"The civil rights movement understood something these eight senators have apparently forgotten: nonviolent resistance is the opposite of acquiescence. When civil rights activists sat at lunch counters, when they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when they filled the jails of Birmingham, they were demonstrating that their capacity to endure suffering exceeded their oppressors’ willingness to inflict it. Their power came not from avoiding pain but from showing they would bear it, that their resolve ran deeper than the cruelty arrayed against them, that they could not be broken. Each act of brutality against peaceful protesters did not break the movement. It revealed the moral bankruptcy of the system attacking them.

The Hungarian story doesn’t have to be the American story. But here’s what breaking the pattern requires: Democrats must demonstrate they can stand strong against Republican attempts to inflict suffering. Not because suffering is virtuous, but because it’s the only language of power in a hostage situation. The civil rights movement understood this. Each time they filled the jails, they raised the cost of oppression until it exceeded the oppressor’s willingness to pay. The alternative—calibrating your resistance to stay within bearable pain levels—just teaches your opponents exactly how much pain to inflict.

What we just witnessed was another turn of the ratchet in American democracy’s descent. But here’s what makes this moment particularly maddening: this is an elite failure, not a popular one. The Democratic base understands what’s at stake. Grassroots activists, organizers, and voters have shown they’re willing to fight. The failure lies with party leadership who mistake capitulation for pragmatism. Until Democratic leaders can be made to fear cowardice more than they fear Republicans, the pattern will continue.

The question now is whether that resolve can force elites to stop surrendering on …

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Jan W. Mueller, Alan Richardson , and 4 more Anna O. Law, Jan W. Mueller, Alan Richardson, Nazita Lajevardi, Christina Ho, Thomas J. Hayes, Nicole Guenther Discenza

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 13d

Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.

Table showing the five richest men in the U.S from Bloombergs billionaire list
., all in technology. Elon Musk tops the list with a net worth of $461B and a year-to-date gain of $28.2B. Larry Ellison is second at $300B with a $107B YTD gain. Jeff Bezos has $268B (+$29.5B YTD), Larry Page $250B (+$81.9B YTD), and Sergey Brin $234B (+$75.5B YTD). Each row also lists last-day change, country (all United States), and industry (all Technology).

Reposted by William Myers, Tabitha Bonilla

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 13d

What’s the difference between compromise and capitulation? Compromise trades concessions. Capitulation pays ransom to stop deliberate suffering, and teaches your opponent that coercion works. There are effective responses to coercive bargaining. What we saw was not one of them.

The Compassion Trap: How the Shutdown Weaponized Democratic Values Against Democracy Itself

When Opposition Parties Stop Fighting Because the Cruelty Becomes Unbearable. And Why They Shouldn't.

open.substack.com

Reposted by Adam Bonica

tara mcgowan @taraemcg.bsky.social · 13d

"It’s a nasty tactic but an effective one. Create unbearable suffering. Wait for your opponents’ empathy to overwhelm their resolve. Then offer relief in exchange for political surrender." - @adambonica.bsky.social
data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-compas...

The Compassion Trap: How the Shutdown Weaponized Democratic Values Against Democracy Itself

When Opposition Parties Stop Fighting Because the Cruelty Becomes Unbearable. And Why They Shouldn't.

data4democracy.substack.com

Reposted by Adam Bonica, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Way to Win @waytowinus.bsky.social · 14d

JUST POSTED: Everyone Is Wrong, our response to the recent series of arguments that – based on the hypothesis that Harris lost and Dems underperformed in 2024 due to (summarizing broadly) voters’ perceptions that Dems are too far left – Democrats need to move right to win.

Everyone Is Wrong

The Way To Win Is Strength, Not Moderation. The 2025 Winners Proved It.

chartingthewayforward.substack.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 14d

I struggle to understand people who hoard power just to refuse to ever use it.

Reposted by Adam Bonica

Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 15d

this seems like a relevant post re golden's resignation. www.everythingishorrible.net/p/if-moderat...

If Moderates Overperform, How Do You Explain Sinema?

The NYT editorial board is full of shit.

www.everythingishorrible.net

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Adam Bonica

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 17d

SNAP benefits are currently being held hostage by the Trump administration and their fate now lies with the Supreme Court.

Beneath the legal arguments are real people who simply need food—a former federal worker, a single mother of 4, a disabled man. I spoke to them. Here are their stories:

The voices of SNAP

Recipients have become political pawns. They explained, in their own words, what Trump withholding funds has been like.

www.thehandbasket.co

Reposted by Adam Bonica

Jenny Shen @jennyqshen.bsky.social · 17d

The next Democratic president can fix the evergreen government shutdown crisis: "It’s a systematic disadvantage they must fix when they have the power to do so ... No negotiation. No compromise. Just restore the system that worked for a century."

Read: data4democracy.substack.com/p/why-americ...

An excerpt from Adam Bonica's Substack: On Data and Democracy:

The Political Reality: A One-Sided Problem

Congressional leaders might insist they need shutdowns as leverage—that without this threat, presidents won’t come to the table. This gets the recent history backwards. Nearly every shutdown in the past three decades stemmed from Congress’ own internal gridlock, its inability to send any bill to the president’s desk. These weren’t battles between Congress and the White House. They were congressional Republicans holding the government hostage to extract concessions they couldn’t win through normal legislation.

The current rules aren’t neutral. They’re a structural gift to the party that wants government to do less. Republicans keep their priorities funded during shutdowns while Democratic priorities—environmental protection, workplace safety, food assistance—get decimated. This asymmetry explains why Republicans consistently trigger these crises while Democrats scramble to end them. When the rules reward your side for creating chaos, why would you want to change them?

Democrats need to recognize this isn’t a shared problem requiring bipartisan solutions. It’s a systematic disadvantage they must fix when they have the power to do so. The next Democratic president should issue the corrective memo. No negotiation. No compromise. Just restore the system that worked for a century.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 17d

It’s no walk in the park to serve in Congress, and I don’t begrudge Golden for stepping away. But it seems likely that his polling numbers among his own constituents factored into the decision.

Favorability:
16% favorable | 41% unfavorable

Deserves to be Re-elected?:
26% does | 57% doesn’t

A horizontal stacked bar chart titled “Favorability – 2026 2nd Congressional District Candidates – CD2 Residents – October 2025.” It displays ratings for Paul LePage, Matthew Dunlap, and Jared Golden. LePage is 41 percent favorable, 6 percent neutral, 51 percent unfavorable, and 3 percent “don’t know enough.” Dunlap is 18 percent favorable, 23 percent neutral, 16 percent unfavorable, and 44 percent “don’t know enough.” Golden is 16 percent favorable, 40 percent neutral, 41 percent unfavorable, and 3 percent “don’t know enough.”

https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1896&context=survey_center_polls

A four-panel bar chart titled “Does Golden Deserve to Be Re-elected – By Party ID – October 2025.”
Overall: 57 percent say he does not deserve reelection, 26 percent say he does, 16 percent don’t know.
Among Democrats: 36 percent say he doesn’t deserve reelection, 51 percent say he does.
Independents: 66 percent say he doesn’t, 27 percent say he does.
Republicans: 75 percent say he doesn’t, 5 percent say he does.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 17d

Perhaps it would by the current Supreme Court. But at least then they would take ownership of the decision. And that wouldn’t make it “correct.” It would be a fascinating (and telling) decision, given this Court’s extraordinary deference to Trump’s claims of unilateral spending authority.

Reposted by Steven S. Smith, Benjamin Braun, Sebastian Karcher , and 1 more Steven S. Smith, Benjamin Braun, Sebastian Karcher, William Myers

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 17d

Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling?
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.

What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:

Why America’s Government Shutdowns Exist and How to End Them

One Legal Memo Created The Shutdown Era. Another Can End It.

open.substack.com