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Charlotte Swasey

@charlotteeffect.bsky.social
819 followers 128 following 423 posts

Data witch for good causes and bad datasets

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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Quick 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...
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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.com
Rural Data Centers Are in for a Big Federal Tax Break
Under 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.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
New 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...
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Also like.....who is this woman. It's a pivot from "random staffer" to "random staffer [trumpy]"
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I 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.com
Polling has become a playground for grifters, liars, and frauds
I'm a pollster and this is getting ridiculous.
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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.com
Polling has become a playground for grifters, liars, and frauds
I'm a pollster and this is getting ridiculous.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
You had questions, I have answers!
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Reposted by Charlotte Swasey
Searchlight Institute @searchlightinstitute.org · 18/09/2026
We 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?
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
They've been doing this since the start, so not a change!
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
People 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.org
How to Build a Supermajority
There’s no secret coalition of highly ideological voters waiting to be driven to the ballot box; this is the heterodox American electorate.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I 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!
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Other 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
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
You 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.org
How To Build A Supermajority: Go Beyond Partisanship
We want to complicate your understanding of the American electorate.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Middle ground being distinct from a "lean" response- something like "do thing A AND thing B"
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
They'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
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I 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.org
How To Build A Supermajority: Go Beyond Partisanship
We want to complicate your understanding of the American electorate.
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Reposted by Charlotte Swasey
Searchlight Institute @searchlightinstitute.org · 17/09/2026
It'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.org
What’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.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Here's mine (I literally made this quiz and I'm still a little surprised)
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Find 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...
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I 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/...
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Maybe 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)
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I'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.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I'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/...
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Reposted by Charlotte Swasey
Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
it's often easier to see why something is a bad idea, electorally, when it is a Republican doing it and not a Democrat
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Rob Sand is absolutely doing our approach, thank you very much.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Lads, 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.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Many houses look like they're lawful good but they're a secret other thing (doorbell that hasn't worked in 10 years)
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Also 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"
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The 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...
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Reposted by Charlotte Swasey
Kent Lind @camasonian.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
We have data on this. The blue is all the non-ag human use:
Colorado River usage chart
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
It 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.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Platner'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)
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Just 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.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
incredible stuff
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
At 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.
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
But remember in 2020 you needed a certain number of donors to make debates, and everyone bragged about the small average contribution!
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
It'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
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
This needed a "who???" option
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
damn who showed this guy my bio
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Time is a flat circle and older people still watch a lot of traditional TV
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The voters have joined the war on Christmas on the side of Christmas?
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
It 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...
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Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
This 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.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Voters 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.com
Primary and General Electorates Are Very Different
A not so gentle reminder as we move into general election season
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Primary elections and general elections are different and here's some charts to help remind you of that open.substack.com/pub/cauldron...
open.substack.com
Primary and General Electorates Are Very Different
A not so gentle reminder as we move into general election season
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I haven't seen analysis of the media spend but there can't have been that much airtime they didn't already have
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
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Charlotte Swasey @charlotteeffect.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I have terrible news
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Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Language 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.
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