Dissertation & Other Projects

 In my dissertation, I study the politics of economic redistribution within the contemporary Democratic Party. 

In my first dissertation paper, I study the nature of the shifting economic interests of the Democratic Party's coalition. In a second paper, I show multi-method evidence that progressive taxation is a policy area for which newly opened divisions by economic interests among Democratic voters also translate to divisions by policy preferences—i.e., new affluent Democrats are not often supportive of increasingly progressive taxation. In subsequent papers, I study the coalition's preferences for racial and gender equality policies, preferences for redistribution under different policy cost and benefit combinations, and over-time effects of increasingly affluent state Democratic voter coalitions on state tax policies.

Broadly, I argue that an increasingly affluent Democratic voter base creates certain constraints on Democratic elites aiming to enact progressive economic policies which would require imposing direct policy costs on (newly Democratic) affluent voter blocs. Understanding these issues helps illuminate tradeoffs of progressive economic policy strategies within the new Democratic Party.

Dissertation papers:

“Polarization of the Rich: The Increasingly Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution.” Perspectives on Politics. 2023. (link; media coverage in the Liberal Patriot, Undercurrent Events, City Journal, Better Conflict Bulletin)

• Abstract: Affluent Americans used to vote for Republican politicians. Now they vote for Democrats. In this paper, I show detailed evidence for this decades-in-the-making trend and argue that it has important consequences for the U.S. politics of economic inequality and redistribution. Beginning in the 1990s, the Democratic Party started winning increasing shares of rich, upper-middle income, high-income occupation, and stock-owning voters. This appears true across voters of all races and ethnicities, is concentrated among (but not exclusive to) college-educated voters, and is only true among voters living in larger metropolitan areas. In the 2010s, Democratic candidates’ electoral appeal among affluent voters reached above-majority levels. I echo other scholars in maintaining that this trend is partially driven by the increasingly “culturally liberal” views of educated voters and party elite polarization on those issues, but I additionally argue that the evolution and stasis of the parties’ respective economic policy agendas has also been a necessary condition for the changing behavior of affluent voters. This reversal of an American politics truism means that the Democratic Party’s attempts to cohere around an economically redistributive policy agenda in an era of rising inequality face real barriers.

“Education Polarization, Affluent Democratic Voters, and Redistribution.” Under review. 2023. (link; appendix)

• Abstract: A hidden side of the education polarization happening across capitalist democracies is the increasing affluence of center-left parties like the Democratic Party. Political competition is increasingly multidimensional. While shared partisanship unites Democrats across educational attainment and affluence on “sociocultural” issues, existing literature argues that partisan identity also overwhelmingly structures preferences for material redistribution. I argue, instead, that increasing divergences in economic interests of Democrats leads to distinct preferences for redistribution. Methodologically, I show that incorporating the costs of policies (e.g., taxation) improves measurement of voters’ economic policy preferences. In this paper, I analyze old and new preference data that shows affluent Democratic voters are not supportive of redistribution. Further, I show that after Democratic politicians win affluent voters, they are more likely to cut progressive taxes. In total, these findings carry important implications for preference measurement, the effects of sociocultural polarization, and the politics of redistribution in the Democratic Party.

"What Forms of Redistribution Do Americans Want? Understanding Preferences for Policy Benefit-Cost Tradeoffs." Political Research Quarterly. 2024. (link; appendix; replication code; dataset; codebook)

• Abstract: Political scientists agree that most Americans generally prefer economic policies to the left of the status quo—voters are “operationally liberal.” However, economic preferences have traditionally been measured as opinions on public spending (i.e., “benefits”), independent from the “costs” of public policies (e.g., taxation). In reality, any redistributive economic policy will impose costs on some actors while delivering benefits to others. When a policy’s costs and benefits are both apparent, what types of redistribution do Americans prefer? This paper presents novel survey evidence showing that preferences for policy benefits are indeed sensitive to which subgroups would bear the policy’s costs (and vice versa). Majorities of the contemporary American electorate do support a wide range of redistributive economic policy packages—as long as the wealthy are footing the bill or if the policy’s costs are hidden. When the size of the group facing the policy cost (e.g., tax) increases, support for the policy declines. This new preference measurement strategy also enhances our understanding of intra-party policy demands: preference differences are large between Republican voters by economic status, while divisions within the Democratic coalition are smaller and subtler but still clear on certain policies. Overall, this paper shows that measuring preferences for policy “costs” such as taxation are crucial to truly understanding voters’ economic policy demands. Further, the lack of enactment by political elites of the forms of redistribution consistently supported by the public casts doubt on the strength of democratic representation on these issues. 

“Are Rich Democrats Woke? A Cross-Class Coalition, Resentment Measures, and Racial and Gender Redistribution." 2023. (link)

• Abstract: Democratic politicians have increasingly attracted support from affluent American voters, who are disproportionately white and men. What might this mean for the politics of racial and gender equality in the Democratic Party? Affluent Democrats exhibit less racial and gender resentment than their less affluent co-partisans, which might indicate greater likelihood for prioritization of racial and gender redistribution by Democratic elites. However, the material interests of affluent Democratic voters appear to structure their policy preferences on these issues as much as, if not more than, their symbolic racial and gender resentment beliefs. In this paper, I show that affluent Democrats are not more supportive than their less affluent co-partisans of economic policies that would bring about more material racial and gender equality (e.g., reparations, affirmative action, maternity leave, public abortion funding, public pre-K). This evidence comes from original analyses of multiple recent political surveys. In fact, affluent Democrats are sometimes less supportive of these policies than their less affluent co-partisans. Affluent Democrats are also less supportive of progressive taxation that might be needed to fund these types of redistributive economic policies. While survey measures of symbolic beliefs such as “resentments” can meaningfully relate to political views and behaviors, they do not overwhelm the conservatizing effects of affluence on preferences for gender and racial redistribution.

Other research on U.S. climate politics and political economy:

“The U.S. Political Economy of Climate Change: Impacts of the “Fracking” Boom on State-Level Climate Policies.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly. 2023. (link)

• Abstract: In the face of the intensifying global climate crisis, the US has failed to implement comprehensive policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. During the 2000s, the shale oil and gas extraction (i.e., “fracking”) revolution highlighted the American energy economy. Is the fracking boom partially to blame for US lagging on climate policy? Political economy theory suggests that economic resources are primary drivers of policy outcomes. In this paper, I originally evaluate that claim in the context of the American states, the governments most powerful to mitigate emissions while the federal government faces gridlock. I first introduce an original measure of one state-level climate policy: adoption of the low-emission vehicle (LEV) policy from 1991 to 2015. I then frame the US fracking boom of the mid-to-late 2000s as a natural experiment, employing a difference-in-difference design to compare the effects of fracking on two climate policies across the American states – LEV and renewable electricity policy. Results yield evidence of a causal impact of the fracking boom on state LEV adoption and more suggestive evidence of an impact on renewable electricity mandates. I conclude by arguing that efforts to evaluate the influence of business on policy should account for “structural power” mechanisms.

“Bridging the Blue Divide: The Democrats' New Metro Coalition and the Unexpected Prominence of Redistribution.” Perspectives on Politics. 2023. (link) (with Jacob S. Hacker, Amelia Malpas, and Paul Pierson; available upon request.)

“The Insurance Value of Abortion and Support for Reproductive Rights.” Revise and resubmit, Political Behavior. 2023. (with Natalie Hernandez and Alexander Trubowitz; available upon request.)

“Preferences Under Pressure: Income Loss and Support for Progressive Taxation.” Revise and resubmit, Socio-Economic Review. 2023. (with Alexander Trubowitz; available upon request.)

“Why So Little Sectionalism in the United States? The Under-Representation of Place-Based Economic Interests.” 2021. (with Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson.) Forthcoming in Unequal Democracies: Public Policy, Responsiveness, and Redistribution in an Era of Rising Economic Inequality, edited by Jonas Pontusson and Noam Lupu, Cambridge University Press.

“'In This House We Believe': The Housing Crisis, Redistribution, and the Renter-Homeowner Divide among Democrats." 2023. (with Amelia Malpas; available upon request.)

Other writing on political strategy in American politics:

• “To Win Progressive Policies, Tell Voters Exactly How They Will Benefit” (December 2022, Jacobin)

• “What the Sunrise Movement Can Do Better” (August 2021, Jacobin; with Johnathan Guy; news coverage in Politico, The New Yorker)

• “We Need a Green New Deal to Expand Worker Ownership of Our Economy” (August 2020, Jacobin)