Tag Archives: ideology

What Rep. Watkins teaches us about party and ideology

Rank-and-file legislators know which side their bread is buttered on. Political scientists have made a parlor game of calculating ideology scores for elected officials based on their voting records. The gold standard for the US Congress is the DW-NOMINATE algorithm; you … Continue reading

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What do Mike Lee and Elizabeth Warren have in common?

Senator Lee has the distinction of being the most ideologically extreme senator in the 113th Congress. At first glance, it may seem as though Utah’s Tea Party Senator, Mike Lee, and Massachusetts’ liberal firebrand, Elizabeth Warren, may not have much … Continue reading

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Utah Voters Support Medicaid Expansion

43% of Utah voters prefer the Governor’s plan, 33% prefer the ACA plan, 13% prefer no change, and 11% prefer the Speaker’s Plan.  This post was written by CSED Research Fellow and BYU Political Scientist Jay Goodliffe with assistance from … Continue reading

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What kind of Republican is Spencer Cox?

Spencer Cox is about as run-of-the-mill of a Republican as Utah can produce. Governor Gary Herbert has nominated Spencer Cox to replace Greg Bell as Utah’s new Lieutenant Governor. Few outside the Legislature had heard Cox’s name before the governor’s … Continue reading

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New ideology ratings for the Utah Legislature

Two years ago I released ideology scores for each Utah legislator who served between 2007 and 2011. Today I’m releasing an update that extends the scores through 2013. (Thanks to my research assistant, Justin Chang, for invaluable help.) I’ve written … Continue reading

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Party Identification, Party Registration, and “Unaffiliated” Voters

Only 26% of unaffiliated voters also identify as independents. The remaining unaffiliated voters split evenly between Republicans (35%) and Democrats (34%). In other words, it’s probably okay to confuse registered Republicans (party registration) with self-identified Republicans (party identification), but unaffiliated … Continue reading

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Do candidates’ issue positions influence voters?

Utah voters may selectively think of only certain issues This analysis was performed by Ethan Busby, a student research fellow at BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (“like” CSED on Facebook), in collaboration with CSED faculty. The … Continue reading

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What kind of Republican is Mia Love?

What kind of Republican is Mia Love? She’s not too far off from Chaffetz, Stewart, and Bishop. Last week, I used Congressional voting data to assess whether Jim Matheson is a moderate or liberal Democrat. The unsurprising conclusion: He’s to … Continue reading

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Is Jim Matheson a liberal or a moderate?

Matheson’s Congressional votes often go against partisan expectations. Jim Matheson presents himself to voters as a moderate willing to work with both parties. Critics from the right contend that he’s really a liberal at heart who will promptly ally with … Continue reading

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Cage match: Janice Fisher and Fred Cox

Representatives Cox and Fisher disagreed 54% of the time on close votes. The new legislative district maps adopted a few months back placed two Utah legislators into the same district: Republican Fred Cox and Democrat Janice Fisher. Now that both … Continue reading

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