Articles by John Sides

by in Model Politics

Did the the contraception contretemps hurt Obama's standing among Catholic voters?  Despite endless speculation about this, evidence has been in short supply. With some newly released data from YouGov, I can shed some light on this question. Here is the percent who approve of Obama among both Catholics and non-Catholics in the last 7 weeks of YouGov/Economist polls. A timeline of events in the contretemps is here.  The announcement occurred on Friday, January 20, just before a YouGov poll went into the field.  It registered no apparent effect, relative to the previous week's poll.  However, the following week, there was ... read more

by , and in Model Politics

We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. This has been interpreted ... read more

by in Model Politics

Matt Bai's piece on Sunday nicely illustrated how divided Tea Party activists are about the Republican presidential contenders.  Are the findings from his interviews with activists mirrored in polling data?  Yes.  And this tells us something about whether and how the Tea Party will matter in 2012. In a January 7-10 YouGov poll, respondents were asked two questions about the Tea Party: Do you think of yourself as a part of the Tea Party movement? Generally speaking, do you support or oppose the goals of the Tea Party movement? The first question spotlights "Tea Party identifiers," while the second spotlights ... read more

by and in Model Politics

The debate among the Republican candidates over Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital has raised again questions about whether Romney’s tenure in the “1%” will damage his campaign.  The Obama team certainly welcomes this debate.  After all, they have been attacking Romney along precisely these lines. The day after Mr. Romney squeezed out a razor-thin victory in the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Obama’s political brain-trust trained most of its fire on him, painting him as both a Wall Street 1 percent type and an unprincipled flip-flopper. Some new survey data that Lynn Vavreck and I have gathered in collaboration with YouGov suggests ... read more

by and in Model Politics

At a Santorum event in Altoona, Iowa, Sides was approached by a man selling a book he had written:   It is a retelling of The Cat in the Hat, starring Barack Obama as “The New Democrat.”  The illustrations resemble the Seussian originals, although the verses differ slightly.  To wit: I'll make friends with our enemies. They’ll do us no harm... If they see we are weak We must therefore disarm! Sides asked the author, Loren Spivack, who he was supporting in the Republican primary.  He said either Santorum or Perry (“definitely one of the Ricks”).  Then Sides asked if ... read more

Do GOP Voters Care about Electability?

by and in Model Politics and Politics

Presidential primaries often come down to this choice: do you vote for the candidate you like the most, or do you vote for the candidate who is most likely to win?  Factions within political parties often disagree over this question.  This election season, Republicans have debated whether to nominate someone like Mitt Romney, whose conservative credentials have been questioned, or whether to nominate another candidate, such as Rick Perry or Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich, who is perceived to be more reliably conservative but possibly less able to beat Barack Obama.  In the language of social science, should Republicans choose ... read more

The Effects of a Tax Receipt

by in Model Politics

The notion that Americans should get a "tax receipt" has gotten a lot of attention. Third Way has promoted the idea and developed an on-line calculator that actually provides one. The White House has a calculator too. The idea is that any American should be able to see where their tax money goes - what percent to Medicare, national defense, education, and so on. Ezra Klein called it a "dead-obvious reform." It is true that Americans do not always have an accurate understanding about how the federal government spends its money. They dramatically overestimate spending on foreign aid, to choose ... read more

Bio

Professor Sides studies political behavior in American and comparative politics. His current research focuses on political campaigns, the effects of factual information on public opinion, citizenship laws and national identity, and measurement equivalence. His work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Communication, Political Studies, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. He helped found and contributes to The Monkey Cage, a political science blog.