Debunking the myth that poor whites vote against their interests for Republicans

Recent years have seen the rise of the idea that poor whites in America have developed a tendency to vote for Republicans, who in general do not have their best interests in mind. Using National Election Survey data, Sean Richey, J. Benjamin Taylor, Jeffrey M. Glas and Junyan Zhu take a close look at this idea of ‘incorrect voting’, and find that poor whites actually tend to vote for Democrats – who do better represent their interests – around 75 percent of the time. They also comment that when poor whites do vote against their interests, this tends to be third party candidates, rather than Republicans

Health Communications Trial with a Resistant Population to Increase Public Health Compliance during a Pandemic

Background: Georgia has among the worst rates of COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates in the nation. Many identifying as politically conservative resist public health mitigation measures, similar to populations in other politically conservative geographical areas. There are limited peer-reviewed public health communications designed for this population. We aimed to determine if an intervention using a fear appeal approach with efficacy during a pandemic can positively affect knowledge, attitude, perception, and/or behavior (KAP) in Georgia with this population. Methods: We delivered online video stimuli tailored to the geocultural characteristics of the target population. designed to stimulate fear, encourage efficacy, and counter mis- and disinformation. It used three routes to affect participants: narrative, direct messaging, and non-message cues. We measured risk aversion and conspiratorial ideation as moderating psychological factors using psychological batteries. Census and voting data were used to identify a convenience sample of 829 Georgia adults in an outer Atlanta suburb. Results: Exposure to the video, moderated by risk aversion, resulted in increased recommended mitigating behavior to prevent COVID-19 (13.7%, 95% CI: 2.7% to 24.7%,) and increased positive attitude toward the recommendations (7.7%, 95% CI: 5.9% to 9.3%). Exposure to the video, moderated by conspiratorial ideation, resulted in an increase in perception of COVID-19 risk (7.6% 95% CI: 1.8% to 13.5%) among participants. Conclusions: An intervention using a fear appeal approach with efficacy during a pandemic can positively affect attitude and risk perception of a politically conservative population. Scaling similar interventions with resistant geocultural populations has promise of increasing adherence to public health recommendations. The moderating factor of conspiratorial ideation is relevant given conspiracies during pandemics, such as COVID-19. This multidisciplinary study contributes to the extant literature by providing insights of populations influenced by contrary political attitudes

Patriotism and Civic Competence and Civic Engagement.

A survey and survey experiment to examine patriotism and civic competence and civic engagement

Local Patriotism

Patriotism has exclusively been conceived of as a national-level concept. I posit that people love (or hate) their municipal area also. Based on long-standing theories of patriotism in national politics, I develop a theory of how local patriotism can be used to solve collective action problems, such as free-riding in local political movements. Using novel nationally representative samples, I will test that people do have feelings of love, in-difference or hate toward their municipality, and that there is a strong correlation between loving one’s municipality and participation in local politics. I conduct a survey that will test whether love of one’s town is a motivator of local political participation. Specifically, these results whether more work in Political Science is needed to understand how feelings toward the local area affect local politics

Voting by Mail: Turnout and Institutional Reform in Oregon

I test the impact of Oregon's vote-by-mail system on voter turnout. Copyright (c) 2008 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.