Daniel M Thompson

Assistant Professor · Political Science · UCLA
dthompson at polisci dot ucla dot edu

I am an assistant professor of political science at UCLA studying American politics and political methodology. My research studies elections in the US with a particular focus on partisan election administration and the role of elections in local policymaking. I collect untapped administrative data and large new datasets on local elections. I pair this data with modern empirical techniques for causal inference to understand how electoral institutions shape who wins and the policies they set. Prior to joining UCLA, I received a PhD in political science from Stanford in 2020 and a Master of Public Policy degree from UC Berkeley in 2014.

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Publications

Did Private Election Administration Funding Advantage Democrats in 2020? Joint with Apoorva Lal. Accepted, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Coverage: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post)

How Partisan Is Local Election Administration? Joint with Joshua Ferrer and Igor Geyn. Forthcoming, American Political Science Review. (Online appendix, Coverage: Not Another Politics Podcast, The Science of Politics)

How Did Expanding Absentee Voting Affect the 2020 US Election? Joint with Jesse YoderSandy Handan-Nader, Andy Myers, Toby Nowacki, Jen Wu, Chenoa Yorgason, and Andy Hall. 2021. Science Advances 7(52):1-8. (Online appendix)

Do Citizens Vote Against Incumbents Who Permit Local Immigration? Evidence from the Mariel Boatlift. 2022. Political Science Research and Methods 11(4): 728-745. (Online appendix)

Universal Vote-by-Mail Has No Impact on Partisan Turnout or Vote Share (previous title: The Neutral Partisan Effects of Vote-by-Mail: Evidence from County-Level Roll-Outs). Joint with Jen WuJesse Yoder, and Andy Hall. 2020. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117(25): 14052-14056. (Online appendix; Coverage: Bloomberg, Not Another Politics Podcast, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post)

How Partisan Is Local Law Enforcement? Evidence from Sheriff Cooperation with Immigration Authorities. 2020. American Political Science Review 114(1): 206-221. (Online appendix)

Who Punishes Extremist Nominees? Candidate Ideology and Turning out the Base in U.S. Elections. Joint with Andy Hall. 2018. American Political Science Review 112(3): 509-524. (Online appendix; Coverage: New York Times, New York Times Upshot, Vox, Washington Post)

Working Papers

Are Dead People Voting By Mail? Evidence From Washington State Administrative Records. Joint with Jen Wu, Chenoa Yorgason, Hanna Folsz, Sandy Handan-Nader, Andy Myers, Toby NowackiJesse Yoder, and Andy Hall.

Do Elections Increase Police Responsiveness? Evidence from Elected Police Commissioners. Joint with Toby Nowacki.

Who Becomes a Member of Congress? Evidence From De-Anonymized Census Data. Joint with Andy HallJames Feigenbaum, and Jesse Yoder