Commentary & Writing

Public scholarship on local news, campaigns, and democracy

FiveThirtyEight

Local News Coverage is Declining - And That Could Be Bad for American Politics

June 2, 2021

The 2020 Candidates Aren't Matching Obama's Iowa Ground Game (Yet)

December 16, 2019

Where Clinton is Setting Up Field Offices - And Where Trump Isn't

October 7, 2016
Featured in the Daily Tar Heel, Vox (Oct 11 & Nov 7), CityLab, The Daily Beast

Trump's Scorning of Data May Not Hurt Him, but It'll Hurt the GOP

May 23, 2016
Featured in The Huffington Post, What's the Point? podcast

Wisconsin's Local Media Aren't As Trump-Obsessed as National Outlets

April 5, 2016
Featured in The Huffington Post

Sanders' Iowa Ground Game is Good - But It Ain't Obama's

January 22, 2016
Featured in Christian Science Monitor

Marco Rubio's Lousy Ground Game in Iowa Will Probably Cost Him Votes

December 17, 2015
Featured in POLITICO, Bloomberg View, Commentary, Newsmax

Liveblogs: Iowa caucuses 2020, New Hampshire primary 2020

The Boston Globe

The future of opinion journalism is hyperlocal

June 16, 2022

Trusting News

How should journalists talk about polarizing statements by politicians? We tested it

December 1, 2022

Research insights: What we learned testing an anti-polarization checklist with news consumers

September 2, 2022

Mischiefs of Faction

In 2020, the ground game is all Trump

October 9, 2020

The incredible shrinking Democratic ground game

November 16, 2017
Featured in Bloomberg, Vox

The Washington Post: Monkey Cage Blog

No, Trump isn't Teflon. Scandals lower his approval among Republicans — if they see the news

September 10, 2019
w/ Nathan Kalmoe, Kathleen Searles, Mingxiao Sui, Ray Pingree, Brian Watson, Kirill Bryanov, and Martina Santia

Scientific American

Why losing our newspapers is breaking our politics

March 26, 2019
w/ Matthew Hitt and Johanna Dunaway

The Conversation

Local newspapers can reduce polarization with opinion pages that focus on local issues

May 27, 2021
w/ Johanna Dunaway and Matthew Hitt

46,218 news transcripts show ideologically extreme politicians get more airtime

February 16, 2021
w/ Jeremy Padgett and Johanna Dunaway

When newspapers close, voters become more partisan

February 11, 2019
w/ Matthew Hitt and Johanna Dunaway

Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin

How a local opinion page can slow polarization

July 23, 2021
w/ Matthew Hitt and Johanna Dunaway

Nieman Journalism Lab

Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis

December 18, 2020

All that campaign cash will make the media's problems worse

December 30, 2019

The nationalization of political news will accelerate

December 12, 2018

London School of Economics: USAPP Blog

Targeting local newspapers can be an effective tactic for campaign field offices

September 29, 2016

When placed strategically, campaign field offices can be very important in turning battleground states during presidential elections

May 12, 2014