Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Quick post, I am looking at Dan Osborn to see if he does worse this time around, because I'm worried that the "aligned Independent" play will age badly as voters learn more cauldronllc.substack.com/p/dan-osborn... 000
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Searchlight Institute @searchlightinstitute.org · 05/10/2026🚨 New Searchlight research, shared first with @mollytaft.com and WIRED, finds MORE THAN 100 planned data centers in rural America will be eligible for new tax benefits starting next year. www.wired.com/story/rural-...wired.comRural Data Centers Are in for a Big Federal Tax BreakUnder the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, data center projects in rural areas could be eligible for major tax benefits starting next year. Some hyperscalers do not seem eager to take the free cash. 0149
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 01/10/2026New from Searchlight: Voters have a mix of liberal and conservative views, but it's not that they're confused about how issues line up ideologically. You can't fool them about the ideological lean of your policy ideas. www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/vot... 010
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Also like.....who is this woman. It's a pivot from "random staffer" to "random staffer [trumpy]" 071
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 23/09/2026I wrote about the (bad!!!) state of polling for The Argument, and some things I think we can do about it (please god stop posting random polling numbers with no context.) www.theargumentmag.com/p/polling-ha...theargumentmag.comPolling has become a playground for grifters, liars, and fraudsI'm a pollster and this is getting ridiculous. 0234
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Searchlight Institute @searchlightinstitute.org · 22/09/2026"Essentially, every single poll silently bakes in the pollster’s assumptions about who will show up on Election Day." Searchlight's @charlotteeffect.bsky.social writes in The Argument about how the line between polling and election forecasting has blurred. www.theargumentmag.com/p/polling-ha...theargumentmag.comPolling has become a playground for grifters, liars, and fraudsI'm a pollster and this is getting ridiculous. 0106
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Searchlight Institute @searchlightinstitute.org · 18/09/2026We hope you've enjoyed taking and sharing our Political Neighborhoods Quiz! @charlotteeffect.bsky.social sat down to react to your results, thoughts, and questions. What neighborhood did you get? 101
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026They've been doing this since the start, so not a change! 010
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026People who are actually interested may enjoy the memo where I walk through our testing on issue salience, how issue positions affect vote choice, and balancing the strength of party identification with the strength of issue preference www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/how...searchlightinstitute.orgHow to Build a SupermajorityThere’s no secret coalition of highly ideological voters waiting to be driven to the ballot box; this is the heterodox American electorate. 000
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I absolutely promise you we've been saying this from the start, since I can screenshot this out of the mission statement we put up on day one. Just because people are finally getting what we've been saying doesn't mean we haven't been saying it! 160
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Other points aside, Blue Rose testing absolutely does do those things, a quick skim of just their public facing work would show you breakdowns by party, vote choice, ideology, etc 110
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026You can find all the questions, the methods, a more complete write up at the link. But I do have this on hand, 55% think it's sometimes necessary to spank children, but 78% don't want to ban it. www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/how...searchlightinstitute.orgHow To Build A Supermajority: Go Beyond PartisanshipWe want to complicate your understanding of the American electorate. 000
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Middle ground being distinct from a "lean" response- something like "do thing A AND thing B" 000
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026They're intended to be pretty blunt, giving people wiggle room can obscure their underlying beliefs. We actually did edits after our first round of respondent feedback- some of them were more blunt than this! Re: lawn sign, it's a dig, it's riffing on "in this house we believe" signs 120
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I am, but the questions are drawn from a much larger survey (they've the subset that we eventually selected to use in our segmentation), and they're very deliberately constructed as forced choices between alternatives with no middle ground. More here www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/how...searchlightinstitute.orgHow To Build A Supermajority: Go Beyond PartisanshipWe want to complicate your understanding of the American electorate. 210
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Searchlight Institute @searchlightinstitute.org · 17/09/2026It's a beautiful day in the political neighborhood — all nine of them. From the Liberal Arts Left to Cul-de-Sac Conservatives, Lawn Sign Liberals to the Center Square. What kind of neighbor are you? Take the quiz! www.searchlightinstitute.org/political-ne...searchlightinstitute.orgWhat’s Your Political Neighborhood?Answer 16 quick either/or questions about the role of government. There are no right answers, so pick whichever side you lean toward, even if only a little. 011
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Here's mine (I literally made this quiz and I'm still a little surprised) 130
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Find out what political neighborhood you're in! The quiz is short, fun, and I am desperately curious what everyone's results are www.searchlightinstitute.org/political-ne... 10293
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I talk a lot about "heterodoxy", but what does that mean? Well, this, it means this! In collaboration with the NYT, I've got some new data out today www.nytimes.com/interactive/... 000
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Maybe I should be more personally excited about these candidates, but I'm really not, they all seem entirely adequate (and that's probably enough this year) 100
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I'm optimistic about the Senate, but I don't buy this uptick in NE polling. Trying to estimate ticket splitting is hard, and trying to do it with an independent candidate is more hard. Plus, this poll is a bit out of step with the rest. 010
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I'm in the NYT on the midterms again. I know this looks like a dramatic swing but it's really a handful of seats moving a couple points, no need to panic. www.nytimes.com/interactive/... 0121
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026it's often easier to see why something is a bad idea, electorally, when it is a Republican doing it and not a Democrat 1191
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Rob Sand is absolutely doing our approach, thank you very much. 021
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Lads, my library hold on The Dark Forest came in early. This is not what I wanted to follow Book of the New Sun with, there may be a break for some trash in between before I start it. 010
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Many houses look like they're lawful good but they're a secret other thing (doorbell that hasn't worked in 10 years) 040
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Also it is truly incredible how much of this piece came from just reading the paper, where it clearly states stuff like "this number is an accounting benchmark and not a counterfactual" and "only 33% of these factories were actually running by 2024" 050
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 18/08/2026The recent claims that the IRA gave Harris 2.5 million votes just don't pass basic sanity checks. As the kids say, the math isn't mathing. www.wordsinsearchlight.org/p/this-is-no... 1335
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Kent Lind @camasonian.bsky.social · 17/08/2026We have data on this. The blue is all the non-ag human use: 18866172
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026It also incentivizes nationalizing your race. Getting big on social media for being a fighter can be huge for your fundraising, even if it makes no sense for your district. This is how we get Amy McGrath levels of money set on fire in long shot races. 010
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026Platner's seems oddly high but there's a huge range (and it's incredibly difficult to calculate precisely because everyone breaks their FEC reports into different categories) 010
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026Just checked- his payments are really oddly structured so it's hard to get the filing-by-filing comparison (big lump payments to ad vendors), but it's around 45% of money raised going back to plausibly-fundraising activity. 110
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026At one point there were ads asking you to donate one dollar and get a tshirt or something, specifically to drive down average donation size. Wild times. 100
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026But remember in 2020 you needed a certain number of donors to make debates, and everyone bragged about the small average contribution! 141
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026It's messy- people seem to love the aesthetics of being funded by small donors, but hate the cost (it's *super expensive to do*, here's Platners spending). Personally I'd rather dispense with the hype and cope with less money 221
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Time is a flat circle and older people still watch a lot of traditional TV 15817
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 12/08/2026The voters have joined the war on Christmas on the side of Christmas? 000
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 11/08/2026It turns out talking like a combo of Sephiroth and the villain from a children's cartoon doesn't make voters feel better about your product www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/ame... 030
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 07/08/2026This isn't a meaningful claim! What actually happens in a month is something like ~1.1 million men get new jobs, ~1.1 million women get new jobs, ~ million men lose jobs and ~1 million women lose jobs. 3977
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Voters in general elections are different, demographically, from voters in primaries. But they also have different preferences on issues. cauldronllc.substack.com/p/primary-an...cauldronllc.substack.comPrimary and General Electorates Are Very DifferentA not so gentle reminder as we move into general election season 64610
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Primary elections and general elections are different and here's some charts to help remind you of that open.substack.com/pub/cauldron...open.substack.comPrimary and General Electorates Are Very DifferentA not so gentle reminder as we move into general election season 010
Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 06/08/2026I haven't seen analysis of the media spend but there can't have been that much airtime they didn't already have 110
Reposted by Charlotte Swasey Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · 06/08/2026Language matters and if you use "steal election" to mean "spent a lot of money" then you are going to have trouble when elections actually get stolen. 0214