Matthew Shugart

That’s the best answer I came up with. Of course, another is polling error. The two explanations are not mutually incompatible, of course.

Any time :-)

I glanced at that, but sorry, I won’t do more than glance at anything that suggests splitting California into 2 states, let alone 7! We need Senate/federalism reform but this is fundamentally unserious.

Yes, exactly. The commentary on this since that Gallup story has focused too much on the post-Oct 7 decline. It seems the slope got steeper from then but not by that much! And we can tell a similar story about Israeli public opinion trends.

So the Conservative vote did collapse: 1.9%. But where did it go? Reform stayed around 28% but Greens broke 40. I didn’t see that happening.

Thanks. It wasn’t very sophisticated. Just an expression of concern that divergence was happening. And resignation that it was structural and there might not be much we could do.

Israel's Iran regime strike prep: *Well the Prime Minister's son is getting married this weekend with a huge ceremony so not until aft-FOOLED YOU! Lehitraot SAM batteries!*

USA's Iran regime strike prep: *Our fleets will fill the ocean from horizon to horizon. Our aircraft will block out the sun*

I’m so old that I don’t even know what this is.

If I understand the proposal correctly, this would be a highly regressive change—eliminating the one part of the Mexican Senate electoral system that’s directly responsive to national party preferences. The result would exacerbate malapportionment and favor big or regional parties.

I wrote a little essay arguing that back in 2007.

Keir Starmer has written to all Labour MPs attacking the Green Party for embracing "divisive" and "sectarian" politics

I'm picking up concern among Labour MPs about how this letter will come across to people who have voted/are tempted to vote Green, as it could risk further alienating these voters

We’ve got cotton candy and popcorn!

(Cot-N-Candy Aprium tree at “popcorn” bud stage.)

This might be what really happened, but a) it is extremely weird if so, and b) the same if not more skepticism should be applied to what the Cuban government claims as you'd apply to cops shooting people in the US and their initial statements about why.

Indefinitely != eternal.

Presumably it means no sunset clause.

But you may be right that such important details are beside the point. Though I’m not sure. I still think Trump would love to be served a plate of TACO fixings.

Perhaps just as likely that he’s already ordered them to start as soon as the SOTU response begins but won’t even mention them himself.

Betting markets are indicators of how people are betting, not the probability of particular outcomes...

No way. Maybe I’ll just watch some Olympics that I hadn’t had a chance to see yet. And I’ll try my best to stay off this and other fine sites for a bit.

Seems like the Conservative vote might drop even further, which could produce that result.

Iranian leaders may be right to calculate they can wait out a major conflict. Trump will be more constrained by domestic politics than he can possibly imagine. He’s done almost nothing so far to articulate the case.

Will he do that tomorrow? I’m skeptical he wants to use SOTU that way.

Frost-protection measures, Feb. 2026 I was concerned with the younger citrus and avocado trees that also had taken advantage of the warm spell to begin their new growth, including flower buds. I put up some strings of warming lights a…

We had a minor freeze. But because it was happening just as citrus and avos were pushing new growth, I took some protective measures. And, of course, collected some data.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/f...

Indeed. I guess a .25 pct-pt change in the threshold isn’t going to make much difference for him. (“Hovering” might be kind.)

Costa Rica 2026: A sudden drop in the fragmentation trend (with newly added graph) Costa Rica has swung from having the third-greatest votes fragmentation trend among countries that had established democracies as of 2000 to the record single-election drop in fragmentation ever re…

Re-upping this now that I’ve added a pretty picture showing the remarkable fragmentation trend and its sudden reversal.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2026/02/20/c...

Gantz calls to raise minimum electoral threshold for entry into Knesset * * *

The legal threshold should be reduced, not increased. But it’s mysterious why you’d propose to raise it from 3.25% to 3.5%. However, consider the source. It’s not his worst idea.

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

Yup

The lesson here for the United States is not that we should make our system more corrupt.

Rather, it's that we need to change the incentives for our legislators, so that it's no longer rational for them to prioritize party over defending the system.

I agree with this take. Strongly, in fact.

(Not likely a surprise to anyone who has followed me for any length of time. It’s just good to see it articulated.)

Politics 101. At least somebody’s doing it

Very happy to share this thoroughly revised version of our climate institutions working paper -- always a joy to work with @claudiazwar.bsky.social and @chflachsland.bsky.social. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the previous version!
osf.io/preprints/so...

Ugh. But thanks. I really didn’t want to have to go back and listen again.

On the whole, all of the justices seem to me to be reasoning from their conclusions except for Thomas. The 6 who ruled against Trump did not want him to have the power to tariff and found justification for it. The 3 who ruled for him want him to have unilateral power and found logic to rule as such.