Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · Jul 15

UC Berkeley is hiring an Assistant Professor this fall, with a preference for candidates in International Relations, American Politics, or Public Law.

I am on the committee and glad to answer questions. Please apply!

aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04948

Assistant Professor - Department of Political Science

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · Jun 12

My Chinese school made a fun video about my Chinese learning journey. Don’t judge the pronunciation, it was filmed in 2023! 🙈

youtube.com/watch?v=Ay4D...

Dr. David Broockman's Learning Journey (Chinese-Speaking Version)

YouTube video by Chinese Language Academy

m.youtube.com

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Reposted by David Broockman

Omar Wasow @owasow.bsky.social · May 31

Trump administration: We’ll beat China by destroying everything that makes us competitive with China.

Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · May 30

Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 28

That's what we mean by "brand"! :)

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Will add this to our list to look at! We do have candidate fixed effects so our main specification shouldn't contain any bias from that.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Yes, you can see some of the partisan asymmetry in Fig 1 -- R candidates are much more right than D candidates are left. Ds are to the left of voters, still, but voters see the Ds as even more left than they are -- sign of how the national party brand needs to improve.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Thanks for your questions! Fig 2 has endorsement knowledge -- in primaries it's much higher than policy position knowledge. Endorsements often go to different cands; we should quantify this. And I'll see if we have data on timing!

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

I'd put my money down for a revised version of #1: moderation on issues where your party is out of step

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

The broader point: Super-informed/extreme primary voters or uninformed general election voters are unlikely polarization’s main drivers. Groups & other factors studied in the literature are more likely.

Feedback welcome!

Full paper available here: osf.io/7xbza

OSF

osf.io

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Some caveats: This is observational data from 27 districts in 2024. Voters might care about other things like compromise or ideology that we didn't study. For issue voting, projection is a threat to causal inference–but we discuss why that’s unlikely to explain our findings.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Parties face a dilemma. Nominating moderates in close districts helps win—but most voters infer that candidates hold the party’s typical positions. To win some seats, a party needs a *nationwide* moderate reputation. But groups & others might not want to build it (e.g., by moderates in safe seats).

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Summarizing: primary voters actually struggle to identify which candidates match their views. So they rely on other cues—especially from interest groups who might help drive polarization. But general election voters then *do* punish extremism.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

FINDING #3: Evidence that groups contribute to polarization. Group endorsements have major influence. Voters who learn about them are ~15 pp more likely to vote for endorsed candidates. This effect is driven by endorsements from liked groups—negative cues barely register.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

This creates a problem for primary voters: party cues are useless in primaries where everyone's the same party. So primary voters stay confused about who's closest to them, even as they learn what candidates of their party stand for.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

We found evidence that voters learn about candidates partly by learning national party reputations: a) voters somehow learn just as much about no-name candidates, & b) voters are 3x more likely to learn "stereotypical" positions (like Dems supporting healthcare) than unusual ones

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Why do general election voters know more? Party cues.

In general elections, party labels give voters huge clues about candidate positions. In primaries, all candidates have the same party label—so these cues are useless for choosing between them.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

BUT: b/c they know more, general voters much more successfully identify the closest candidate. They vote for the closest candidate on an issue 78% of the time; primary voters only do 18% of the time

The opposite of conventional wisdom about incompetent general voters & aware primary voters

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

When primary AND general voters learn a candidate agrees with them on an issue, they're ~14 percentage points more likely to vote for that candidate.

In generals, this includes when the closest candidate is an outpartisan–party loyalty isn’t everything.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

FINDING #2: Using Lenz’s identification strategy and exploiting our panel data, we also estimate issue voting.

Both primary AND general election voters change their votes when they learn candidate positions—by a very similar amount…

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

FINDING #1: General election voters know MORE about candidate positions than primary voters.

By election day, general election voters correctly identify 40% of candidate positions vs just 22% for primary voters.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

This gives us a ton of unique data.

We measure knowledge & learning of 122 candidate issue positions in the 2024 Congressional primaries and 269 candidate issue positions in the 2024 Congressional generals.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

We monitored debates, websites, & news in real time during the 2024 primary and general elections to identify issues & endorsements where the candidates *in each district* differed. We then conducted pre-election surveys 2-3 mo before each election & re-surveyed again on e-day.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

Conventional wisdom blames:
• Primary voters who closely follow politics & prefer extremists
• General election voters who are too ignorant of candidate positions—or too “intoxicated” by party loyalty—to vote for moderates over extremists

But our data tells a different story…

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 27

🚨NEW PAPER: Why are Members of Congress so extreme?

We conducted a 4-wave panel of thousands of voters in 27 districts during last year’s primary AND general elections to trace polarization’s roots

The results challenge conventional wisdom… and suggest lessons for parties🧵👇

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · May 12

🫣 www.tiktok.com/@kateglavan/...

rant of the day 😌 appealing to moderates is not an effective political organizing strategy so stop using that phrase. thank you xoxo

TikTok video by Kate Glavan

www.tiktok.com

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