Occasional writing
Notes on R, Congress, and computational social science.
Inside the 2024 Precinct Project
How MEDSL collected, cleaned, validated, and released a nationwide dataset of precinct-level returns from the 2024 general election — and where AI tools fit into the workflow.
Coding for Others: Creating an R Package for Specification Curve Analysis
The motivation behind and process of developing speccurvieR — an R package for specification curve analysis — demonstrated on Starbucks and replication data.
Congressional Twitter and Coronavirus
Scraping members of Congress' tweets to see how they talked about COVID-19 — by term, party, and chamber — as the pandemic unfolded.
Python + Reddit + Google Sheets, a fun and frustrating combination
A Thanksgiving-break proof-of-concept: scraping Reddit with PRAW, piping it into Google Sheets, and learning why you should probably skip the spreadsheet.
Attempts to Crack the Case of the Vanishing Marginals
Four decades of political science on the decline of close U.S. House elections — from Mayhew's original puzzle to polarization and the eroding incumbency advantage.
Climate Change Is Here, So How Does Buffalo Really Fare?
Localizing a global issue: how climate change is already reshaping Western New York — agriculture, lake-effect snow, energy, and the people of Buffalo.
Who Congressional Parties Retweet
Scraping the four congressional party Twitter accounts with Tweepy to see who they retweet — by state, category, age, and ideology.
