Chenoa Yorgason
2024–25 Dissertation Fellowship
One of my dissertation projects introduces a new dataset on campaign contributions in city council and mayoral elections, spanning over 5 million contributions in over 170 American cities. In contrast to national politics, city politics have traditionally been characterized as venues where interest groups seek and successfully attain political access, and where national ideology and parties plays weak roles in the electoral process. With this new dataset, I investigate how ideology, partisanship, and access-seeking play a role in municipal elections.
Level of Office and Candidate Attributes
2020–21 Survey Lab Project
Candidate-choice experiments are widely used in Political Science, but little attention is paid to what kind of office these hypothetical candidates are seeking. However, there is evidence that individuals do not treat each office the same way on election day: turnout is much lower when municipal races top the ballot relative to when Congressional or presidential races are on the ballot. Additionally, even when multiple races are on the ballot, voters clearly utilize more than party ID to choose elected officials. Politicians such as Senator Manchin, Secretary of State Kim Wyman of Washington, Democratic governors in Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana, and Republican governors in Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Hampshire all won statewide election despite running in states that reliably vote for the other party in presidential races. In this research, I ask two related questions. First, do individuals prefer different types of candidates for different levels of political office? Second, do individuals prefer representation from candidates running for higher office than from candidates running for lower levels of office?