Public Scholarship

Commentary & Writing

Public writing on local news, campaigns, and democracy.

FiveThirtyEight
Local News Coverage is Declining — And That Could Be Bad for American Politics
Jun 2, 2021
The 2020 Candidates Aren't Matching Obama's Iowa Ground Game (Yet)
Dec 16, 2019
Where Clinton is Setting Up Field Offices — And Where Trump Isn't
Featured in Vox, CityLab, The Daily Beast
Oct 7, 2016
Trump's Scorning of Data May Not Hurt Him, but It'll Hurt the GOP
Featured in The Huffington Post, What's the Point? podcast
May 23, 2016
Wisconsin's Local Media Aren't As Trump-Obsessed as National Outlets
Featured in The Huffington Post
Apr 5, 2016
Sanders' Iowa Ground Game is Good — But It Ain't Obama's
Featured in Christian Science Monitor
Jan 22, 2016
Marco Rubio's Lousy Ground Game in Iowa Will Probably Cost Him Votes
Featured in POLITICO, Bloomberg View, Commentary, Newsmax
Dec 17, 2015
Liveblogs: Iowa caucuses 2020  ·  New Hampshire primary 2020
2020
The Boston Globe
The future of opinion journalism is hyperlocal
Jun 16, 2022
Trusting News
How should journalists talk about polarizing statements by politicians? We tested it
Dec 1, 2022
Research insights: What we learned testing an anti-polarization checklist with news consumers
Sep 2, 2022
Mischiefs of Faction
In 2020, the ground game is all Trump
Oct 9, 2020
The incredible shrinking Democratic ground game
Featured in Bloomberg, Vox
Nov 16, 2017
The Washington Post: Monkey Cage
No, Trump isn't Teflon. Scandals lower his approval among Republicans — if they see the news
With Nathan Kalmoe, Kathleen Searles, Mingxiao Sui, Ray Pingree, Brian Watson, Kirill Bryanov, and Martina Santia
Sep 10, 2019
Scientific American
Why losing our newspapers is breaking our politics
With Matthew Hitt and Johanna Dunaway
Mar 26, 2019
The Conversation
Local newspapers can reduce polarization with opinion pages that focus on local issues
With Johanna Dunaway and Matthew Hitt
May 27, 2021
46,218 news transcripts show ideologically extreme politicians get more airtime
With Jeremy Padgett and Johanna Dunaway
Feb 16, 2021
When newspapers close, voters become more partisan
With Matthew Hitt and Johanna Dunaway
Feb 11, 2019
Nieman Journalism Lab
Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Dec 18, 2020
All that campaign cash will make the media's problems worse
Dec 30, 2019
The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Dec 12, 2018
Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin
How a local opinion page can slow polarization
With Matthew Hitt and Johanna Dunaway
Jul 23, 2021
London School of Economics: USAPP Blog
Targeting local newspapers can be an effective tactic for campaign field offices
Sep 29, 2016
When placed strategically, campaign field offices can be very important in turning battleground states during presidential elections
May 12, 2014