Matthew Shugart

@laderafrutal.bsky.social

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Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, UC Davis. Here about as often as snow is on those hills. Please find me on Twitter or at Fruits & Votes. Blog/links to pubs: fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com

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Matthew Shugart

Remember like two weeks ago when the Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference? Me neither. But I did have a great conversation with water law expert Rhett Larson about the implications, particularly for Colorado River negotiations azwaterinnovation.asu.edu/blog

Yes, this. There was (I think still is) a DJT-news digest website called “what the fuck just happened today.” I checked it almost daily for 4 years. Haven’t looked in the last (almost) 4.

Mostly agree except on reflection I feel like the three-day combo of the shooting, the Cannon decision, and the Vance pick was a powerful reminder of how miserable and exhausting it was to live with one goddamn thing after another when this guy had the spotlight for four straight years

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So, it looks as if Democrats are pressing go on the virtual roll call vote. I appreciate this story. I do. But folks, let's talk about some of the rules particulars in this NYT piece. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/u...

D.N.C. Aims to Push Biden Toward Nomination Next Week, Despite Doubtswww.nytimes.com Leaders of the Democratic National Committee are aiming for a process that would formalize the nomination by the end of July, even as Democrats remain fiercely split over his candidacy.

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I think basically everyone agrees these divides are untenable and unrealistic in modern politics, where split ticket voting has all but disappeared where you come down on Biden right now basically depends on if you think he’ll trend towards the Senate candidates or they will trend toward him

Just huge gaps between the presidential & Senate races in today's 7 state polls. In 5 YouGov polls, the gap between Biden's deficit in the presidential race & Dems' leads in Senate races ranges from a net 11% to a net 15%. In 2 Siena/NYT polls, the net gap is nearly identical: 11% to 14%.

I always find the candidate statements in France fascinating. For instance, here I do an exploration of what the candidates in two districts were saying: fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/07/15/f...

France 2024: Looking at some candidate communicationfruitsandvotes.wordpress.com One of the great things about French elections is the filing of candidate statements with the Ministry of the Interior. I am going to follow up here on two of the contests I wrote about in an earlier ...

Thanks to Manuel for this post exploring the French runoffs aggregated by the various party/alliance matchups. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/07/15/t...

The 2024 French National Assembly Election: No Clear Winner, One Definitive Loserfruitsandvotes.wordpress.com While none of the major contenders in this year’s National Assembly snap election in France – held in two rounds last June 30 and July 7 – emerged with a clear majority of seats, …

Some thoughts on the French premier-presidential system in the wake of the recent election. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/07/11/i...

Is France about to demonstrate “ideal” semi-presidentialism in action?fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com The outcome of the French assembly election of 2024 appears to have set up a situation that could be described as the "ideal" way that semi-presidential systems are meant to operate, based on how such...

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Big news: Utah’s Supreme Court rules that Republicans illegally repealed a ballot initiative that banned partisan gerrymandering. Utah could get a fairer congressional map after 2024 that turns a safely Republican seat solidly Democratic in Salt Lake City. Ruling: campaignlegal.org/document/uta...

Utah Supreme Court rules against legislature's ballot initiative override in redistrictingwww.fox13now.com The Utah Supreme Court has upheld a lawsuit challenging the legislature's redistricting boundaries. In a ruling obtained by FOX 13 News on Thursday morning ahead of its official publication

Any US campaign finance law experts here who can explain whether it’s correct or not that only Harris could seamlessly “inherit” Biden’s campaign funding thus far if he were to withdraw? And if a different campaign tried to inherit those funds, could there be grounds for legal challenge?

New post on this now. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/07/07/f...

Before the first round of the French assembly election I said that, given how election timing works in (semi-)presidential systems, Ensemble should get—as a best guess—28% of the seats. The midrange of the projection from Ipsos exit poll would be 27.8%. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/06/11/m...

More on anticipating the France 2024 resultfruitsandvotes.wordpress.com I mentioned in the earlier planting how French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to call a snap election means he hopes to defy the usual phenomenon of midterm loss of votes. This upcoming election...

France 2024 second round: NFP plurality, Macron’s alliance gets about the seat share I “predicted,” and the RN is in third placefruitsandvotes.wordpress.com The "republican front" has held. While the strong showing in seats won in the French runoffs by the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) and the third place showing by the far-right National Rally (RN) is ...

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The effective number of vote-winning parties at constituency level (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effecti...) has increased a lot

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Reply to

Chris Hanretty

I think this is going to be a moderately bad election for the polling industry which will be forgotten because it's essentially a blowout

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Today’s 538 podcast made an interesting point: — Despite Trump’s many issues, base remains with him so GOP elites fall in line with party leader — With Biden, ~75% of base think Dems have better shot with someone else, so looming question is whether Dem elites will follow base or party leader

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/07/03/h...

How unusual will the UK 2024 result be?fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com The UK general election is 4 July. Polls and forecast models are essentially unanimous that the result will be a very large seat landslide for the Labour Party and its leader Keir Starmer. In votes, a...

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/07/03/s...

Should he stay or should he go?fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com My devoted readers (you know who you are, and I thank you) will know that I made a strong case several months ago that there should not be an effort to replace Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic preside...

With Wales adopting a new system to replace its MMP system, I wanted to explore how the Seat Product Model would expect the new PR system to perform. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/06/27/w...

What does the Seat Product Model say about the Welsh electoral reform?fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com Wales will use a new electoral system at its next devolved assembly election (see the previous planting by JD). The new system will be a pure PR system using closed lists, replacing the mixed-membe…

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Did you want a mash-up of an MRP model with information on candidate characteristics like gender? If so, you're in luck: www.survation.com/the-2024-par...

The 2024 parliament is likely to have a record-breaking number of women MPs | Survationwww.survation.com By Ceri Fowler and Chris Hanretty Current polling suggests that Labour are likely to both win the election and secure a substantial majority. The...

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Not a happy story: hate crimes increase by 67% in constituencies where ethnic minority candidates narrowly won (compared to seats where they narrowly lost)

Stephanie Zonszein and my paper "Voted in, standing out: Public response to immigrants' political accession" is out for early view at AJPS. We use close elections RDD in the UK to explore how dominant-group natives react to immigrants' political integration. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

American Journal of Political Science | MPSA Journal | Wiley Online Libraryonlinelibrary.wiley.com How do dominant-group natives react to immigrants' political integration? We argue that ethnic minority immigrants winning political office makes natives feel threatened, triggering animosity. We tes....

What is Macron thinking? The election timing is not favorable. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/06/09/f...

France will have a snap election in 2024: The electoral cycle doesn’t favor Macronfruitsandvotes.wordpress.com I did not see this coming. French President Emmanuel Macron has dissolved the National Assembly. Early elections will take place, with the first round on 30 June and runoffs in districts where they ar...

Very pleased that my copy arrived today. A book to which I was honored to contribute a chapter, prepared on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Chile’s breakdown of democracy and Arturo Valenzuela’s 1978 book on those events, which was one of the works that most influenced my own research agenda

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Person willing to waste money on a vanity campaign also willing to waste time on a vanity campaign

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that tech attorney and megadonor Nicole Shanahan would join his independent presidential ticket as his running mate, a move that would provide more ballot access to Kennedy as he pursues his long-shot bid for the White House.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. names tech attorney Nicole Shanahan as vice-presidential pickwww.washingtonpost.com RFK Jr. supporters argue that Shanahan’s selection could broaden his appeal to younger voters and women, and strengthen his long-shot bid for the White House.

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www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/w...

Israeli Hostage Says She Was Sexually Assaulted and Tortured in Gazawww.nytimes.com Amit Soussana is the first former hostage to publicly say she was sexually abused in captivity. A U.N. report has said it found “clear and convincing information” that some hostages suffered “conflict...

A new PM has been appointed to head the Palestinian Authority. The media are now running puff pieces about the “revitalization” of the PA. A little basic political science, such as this paragraph I wrote last week, explains why that doesn’t add up. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/03/14/i...

Surely someone is. Right?

Is someone keeping a running tally of people who served in high-ranking positions (VP, Cabinet Secretary, NSA, Chief of Staff) in the Trump administration and how many of them are refusing to endorse him for the presidency? Seems like that should be newsworthy.

“Crusade for civility.” Now there’s an oxymoron.

A lot of critics panning this, but I personally think that Sotomayor's crusade for civility is so important that she should retire from SCOTUS and focus on it full time.

I collected some thoughts on the available polling data and on the prospects for various postwar scenarios. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/03/14/i...

Israel: Possibilities for future grand bargains, considering public opinion on both sidesfruitsandvotes.wordpress.com It is day 160 of the war between Israel and Hamas. I want to look at some polling results over recent months among both Israelis and Palestinians. I prepared a series of slides for a recent semi-publi...

Portugal’s election: Largest party seat share of 0.343, where the seat product model (SPM) prediction for that electoral system would be 0.378, so 0.909 of expectation. Very low for Portugal, but only a little low for the SPM. See details: fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2024/03/10/p...

Portugal 2024fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com This election result will be closer than the country's average past election to the expectation from the seat-product model.

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Last month, Biden issued an executive order that he used to sanction a few violent Israeli settlers. Most people barely noticed. But the order says and does far more than that: it's a potential doomsday weapon against the settler movement. My investigation explains how:

Biden’s New Doomsday Option Against Israeli Settlerswww.theatlantic.com How an executive order takes aim at Netanyahu’s coalition

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#FusionVoting 🗳️ "has some potential for allowing multiple parties to form that might not otherwise under current rules..." -- @laderafrutal.bsky.social analyzes the impact of fusion on our #democracy and how it can be better implemented. Learn more: fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2023/12/27/w...

What role for “fusion voting”? Limitations and a potential “open” improvementfruitsandvotes.wordpress.com It was not something I ever would have predicted, but so-called fusion voting is making a comeback, at least as an option that some American electoral reformers are advocating or suggesting should be ...