Working Papers
Sances, Michael W. “Increasing Turnout Behind Bars: Evidence from Colorado.” March 2025. Currently being revised into a grant proposal.
Clarke, Jesse T., Michael W. Sances, and Charles Stewart III. “The Confidence Earthquake: Seismic Shifts in Trust.” March 2024. Under revision.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
2025
Sances, Michael W. "In-Person Voting Increases Turnout Among Incarcerated Persons: Evidence from the Cook County Jail." Election Law Journal [replication data] online first. November 2025.
Sances, Michael W. “Unequal Competence? Why Criminal Justice Reformers Are Disadvantaged in Local Elections.” Forthcoming at Public Opinion Quarterly. September 2025.
Sances, Michael W. “Protests and Polarization: How Black Lives Matter Changed Attitudes Toward Police.” Political Behavior online first. July 2025.
Sances, Michael W. “The Politics of Police Reform in the States.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 25(2): 150-168. June 2025.
2024
Sances, Michael W. “Attitudes Toward Police and Police Spending.” Public Opinion Quarterly 88(2): 431-441. June 2024.
Berinsky, Adam J., Alejandro Frydman, Michele F. Margolis, Michael W. Sances, and Camilla Valerio. “Measuring Attentiveness in Self-Administered Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly 88(1): 214-241. March 2024.
2023
Sances, Michael W. “Legitimate Questions: Public Perceptions of the Legitimacy of US Presidential Election Outcomes.” Research and Politics [replication data] 10(4): 1. October 2023.
Sances, Michael W. “Defund My Police? The Effect of George Floyd’s Murder on Support for Local Police Budgets.” Journal of Politics 85(3): 795-1165. July 2023.
2022
Sances, Michael W. and Hye Young You. “Voters and Donors: Unequal Political Consequences of Fracking.” Journal of Politics 84(3): 1667-1682. July 2022.
2021
Sances, Michael W. “Presidential Approval and the Inherited Economy.” American Journal of Political Science 65(4): 938-953. October 2021.
Sances, Michael W. and Andrea Louise Campbell. “State Policies and Mental Health Outcomes During Covid-19.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 46(5): 811-830. October 2021.
Sances, Michael W. “Do District Attorneys Represent Their Voters?” Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy 2(2): 169-197. June 2021.
Sances, Michael W. and Joshua D. Clinton. "Policy Effects, Partisanship, and Elections: How Medicaid Expansion Affected Opinion Toward the Affordable Care Act." Journal of Politics 83(2): 498-514. April 2021.
Berinsky, Adam J., Michele F. Margolis, Michael W. Sances, and Christopher Warshaw. “Using Screeners to Measure Respondent Attention on Self-Administered Surveys: Which Items and How Many?” Political Science Research and Methods 9(2): 430-437. April 2021.
Sances, Michael W. “When Voters Matter: The Limits of Local Government Responsiveness.” Urban Affairs Review 57(2): 402-427. March 2021.
Sances, Michael W. “Missing the Target? Using Surveys to Validate Social Media Ad Targeting.” Political Science Research and Methods 9(1): 215-222. January 2021.
2020
Groenendyk, Eric, Michael W. Sances, and Kirill Zhirkov. “Intraparty Polarization in American Politics.” Journal of Politics 82(4): 1616-1620. October 2020.
Rebecca Goldstein, Michael W. Sances, and Hye Young You. “Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service.” Urban Affairs Review 56(1): 5-31. January 2020.
2019
Sances, Michael W. “How Unusual Was 2016? Flipping Counties, Flipping Voters, and the Education-Party Correlation Since 1952.” Perspectives on Politics 17(3): 666-678. September 2019.
Sances, Michael W. and Joshua D. Clinton. “Who Participated in the ACA? Gains in Insurance Coverage by Political Partisanship.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law 44(3): 349-379. June 2019.
2018
Sances, Michael W. “Ideology and Vote Choice in U.S. Mayoral Elections: Evidence from Facebook Surveys.” Political Behavior 40(3): 737-762. September 2018.
Sances, Michael W. “Something for Something: How and Why Direct Democracy Impacts Service Quality.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 13(1): 29-57. April 2018.
Clinton, Joshua D. and Michael W. Sances. “The Politics of Policy: The Initial Mass Political Effects of Medicaid Expansion in the States.” American Political Science Review 112(1): 167-185. February 2018.
2017
Margolis, Michele F. and Michael W. Sances. “Partisan Differences in Nonpartisan Activity: The Case of Charitable Giving.” Political Behavior 79(4): 1286-1301. December 2017.
Sances, Michael W. “Attribution Errors in Federalist Systems: When Voters Punish the President for Local Tax Increases.” Journal of Politics 79(4): 1286-1301. October 2017.
Sances, Michael W. and Hye Young You. “Who Pays for Government? Descriptive Representation and Exploitative Revenue Sources.” Journal of Politics 79(3): 1090-1094. July 2017.
2016
Berinsky, Adam J., Michele F. Margolis, and Michael W. Sances. “Can We Convert Shirkers Into Workers?” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 66: 20-28. September 2016.
Sances, Michael W. “The Distributional Impact of Greater Responsiveness: Evidence from New York Towns.” Journal of Politics 78(1): 105-119. January 2016.
2015
Sances, Michael W. and Charles Stewart III. “Partisanship and Confidence in the Vote Count: Evidence from U.S. National Elections since 2000.” Electoral Studies 40: 176-188. December 2015.
Quek, Kai and Michael W. Sances. “Closeness Counts: Increasing Precision and Reducing Errors in Mass Election Predictions.” Political Analysis 23(4): 518-533. September 2015.
2014
Berinsky, Adam J., Michele F. Margolis, and Michael W. Sances. “Separating the Shirkers from the Workers? Making Sure that Subjects Pay Attention on Self-Administered Surveys.” American Journal of Political Science 58(3): 739-753. July 2014.
2013
Campbell, Andrea Louise and Michael W. Sances. “State Fiscal Policy during the Great Recession: Budgetary Impacts and Policy Responses.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 650(1): 252-273. November 2013.
Sances, Michael W. “Is Money in Politics Harming Trust in Government? Evidence from Two Survey Experiments.” Election Law Journal [replication data] 2(1): 53-73. March 2013.
Sances, Michael W. “Disenfranchisement through Divorce? Estimating the Effect of Parental Absence on Voter Turnout.” Political Behavior 35(1): 199-213. March 2013.