MRP Polling of the 2024 US Presidential Election – November 2023
I was part of the team that produced Stack Data Strategy‘s public MRP model of the 2024 election race. My particular focus was on building the poststratification frame and designing the final models used to estimate vote choice. The model was covered in US publications (Business Insider, Forbes, Politico Playbook etc). I worked with John Burn-Murdoch at the Financial Times on his write-up.
Estimating the effect of “progressive alliances” in the 2022 Local Elections – June 2022
As part of a freelance project for campaign group Compass, I estimated the effect of progressive electoral cooperation in the 2022 Local Elections. I designed a causal inference research approach which compared similar wards where multiple centre-left parties stood a candidate (control) and those where only one centre-left party stood (treatment). I used coarsened exact matching to estimate the causal effect, finding that wards with a single ‘progressive’ candidate had a significantly higher vote share for that party. The benefits for that party were significantly higher than for the Conservative candidate in the ward, indicating that centre-left collaboration may have cost the Conservative Party tens or hundreds of councillors. This research was published on the LSE Politics and Policy blog (PDF).
Quantifying substantive representation of ethnic minorities – September 2022
Under single-member district electoral systems, geography is paramount. This is particularly so for minority groups, for whom geographic concentration mediates the ability to secure representation. In Britain, some have argued that relative concentration of ethnic minorities has increased their ability to achieve descriptive representation. However, this concentration also dilutes the size of minority groups in most districts. My MRes Dissertation (PDF) shows how the presence or absence of ethnic minorities in a constituency is one of the most important factors affecting whether an MP will substantively represent ethnic minorities in Parliamentary speeches.
Owen Winter 