Danielle Thomsen

Old money: Campaign finance and gerontocracy in the United States Politicians in the United States rank among the oldest globally. This study examines how money in politics contributes to age inequality in political …

@adambonica.bsky.social and I are economists now (economist salary coming soon, I imagine)

Ungated until the end of September: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The real scandal here is how deeply embedded Mothership is with the Democratic establishment. It was founded by DCCC alumni and continues to work closely with party leaders. It’s way worse than I thought. And it’s infuriating they continue to allow preying on people to enrich consultants.

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:

$678M raised through those spam tactics

$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.

$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)

The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

Donor List Suggests Scale of Trump’s Pay-for-Access Operation

The most corrupt White House in history. Here is an account of what people are paying, directly to a PAC called MAGA Inc, in order to meet the president, get pardons, change policy

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...

Brilliant keynote by @laurennross.bsky.social at #cogsci2025 on cognitive science and its philosophy. Lauren pointed out the myriad ways in which cogsci and philosophy support and benefit one another, using explanation and causal reasoning as case studies. Thank you for a great talk!! 🙏

On Data and Democracy (Mid-Year Roundup): Charting the Assault on American Democracy and A Path Forward A narrative of a democracy in the balance, told through 29 data visualizations.

Been a busy year in the data mines.📊 Just published my mid-year roundup: 29 data visualizations on the state of US democracy, tracking everything from judicial resistance to billionaire influence to why Dems have a mobilization crisis, not a moderation problem.

All charts free to use:

The Graying of American Campaign Dollars The average campaign dollar now comes from a 67-year-old donor—up from 61 just eight years ago. As political money concentrates among the elderly, younger candidates face mounting barriers to entry.

The avg. campaign dollar now comes from a 67-year-old donor—up from 61 in 2016. When political money talks with a 67-year-old voice, it's no surprise our policies look backward, not forward.

The good news: early donations to younger candidates can help break this cycle and reshape our future.

Two pertinent graphs from me tonight...

First, U.S. support for bombing Iran is very low — much lower than support was at the time for the American military attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, and ISIS.

Link: www.gelliottmorris.com/p/polls-amer...

More polling just dropped -- by a pretty huge margin Americans think that having international students at US universities is good for the country, not bad -- 56% to 14% (+42)

and for 18-29 YOs, nearly 1/2 say international students are "very good"

A huge majority of Americans say that more people should work in manufacturing - but that they, personally, don't want to.

International students add $44 billion to the US economy, annually.

www.aau.edu/newsroom/lea...

Thank you! Just wondering if endorsements are reflection of other indicators of support - namely early fundraising - so timing and concentration/split among candidates would be helpful to know too. Great project!

Interesting project! Questions re: endorsements - 1) what % of primary voters know about group endorsements? 2) any other info on if groups endorsed the same candidate or were split among candidates? 3) when did groups endorse in the cycle?

Infographic titled “Judges reject Trump at an accelerating pace” with subtitle “Federal district court rulings against the administration.” The first bar chart, labeled “By month, %”, shows the percentage of federal district court rulings against the Trump administration: • February: 53.8% (7 out of 13) • March: 74.3% (26 out of 35) • April: 76.1% (51 out of 67) • May: 96.3% (26 out of 27) The second bar chart, labeled “By appointing party, %”, shows rulings against the Trump administration by the party of the judge’s appointing president: • Republican-appointed judges: 72.2% (26 out of 36) • Democratic-appointed judges: 80.4% (74 out of 92) Source: Bonica, Adam; Sen, Maya, 2025, “Common-space Measures of Judicial Ideology for Federal Judges (2024 update),” https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CK3EEL Note: Coding scheme details available at data4democracy.substack.com/p/when-judges-become-targets-judicial

Stunning. May was brutal for Trump in federal court: 96% loss rate ⚖️. Even GOP-appointed judges have ruled against the admin 72% of the time. District courts are doing their job defending the Constitution. Soon the Supreme Court may be the only court unwilling to defend the rule of law.

Will we allow ICE to behave as a secret police? I had missed the story from two weeks ago about what happened after (apparent) agents of the U.S.

New post from me: a free society should not tolerate routine masking and other attempts to conceal identity by ICE agents raiding worksites, stopping cars and arresting protesters. And it's part of a wider Trump administration strategy of pursuing impunity for rights-violating law enforcers.

NEW: A federal judge raised alarm Friday that the Trump administration appeared to have deported a 2-year-old U.S. citizen to Honduras with "no meaningful process" — even as her father was fighting to keep her in the country.

Details w/ @joshgerstein.bsky.social

www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

To everyone that said Democrats like Van Hollen were making a political mistake in defending due process, you were wrong, and we shouldn’t even need a poll to tell us that.

Why Democrats should keep talking about immigration Democrats can once again turn immigration into a losing issue for Trump.

The wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador dominated last week’s news headlines.

Here's why Democrats should keep talking about immigration: goodauthority.org/news/why-dem...

CONGRATS, Dawn!! 🎉

Good reporting here. Student paper gets what the bigs have missed. White House is actually threatening to defund all of bostons major hospitals www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Thermostatic public opinion (that people adjust their views against current policy) is accelerated by providing a strong alternative policy view, poor performance, and media coverage of that poor performance. Immigration right now has all 3 - lawsuits and protests keep it in view

Let this be the start of a civil society cascade of just saying no to authoritarianism.

A table titled “Convicted World Leaders” with columns: Name, Country, Role, Year, Reason, Status, and Consequence. It lists political leaders from various countries who were convicted of crimes ranging from corruption and bribery to abuse of power and attempted coups. Most rows have a red background, signaling convictions with prison time or bans. One row is highlighted in green and features Donald Trump (USA, President), listed as convicted in 2023 for Jan 6, Corruption, Abuse of Power, Documents, Election Interference, with the consequence noted as No formal ban or sentencing/Granted Immunity.

With Yoon removed from office today, by my count that makes 34 democratic leaders convicted since 2010. Only one—Trump—faced no real consequences. Trump's actions weren't uncommon. What was exceptional was how our institutions failed to hold him accountable.

We have had nearly two decades of panic about Free Speech on Campus and not a single case, not even the ones they made up, were as bad as what's happening now

Although it has been more than a decade since judicial and administrative rulings freed the ultrawealthy to contribute unlimited sums to outside political groups, 2024 marked a sea change in the financing of federal elections—and those changes are already spreading to state and local elections, including the upcoming high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race. It’s not just gimmicks like Elon Musk’s offer of $100 to registered Wisconsin voters who sign a petition against “activist judges,” and $100 more for each additional voter they persuade to do the same. Musk and other megadonors have blown past previous spending records in a way that threatens a new American oligarchy. In the 2024 elections, the top six donors supporting or opposing federal candidates each reported contributing at least $100 million, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. Those donors—Musk ($291.5 million), Timothy Mellon ($197 million), Miriam Adelson ($148.3 million), Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein ($143.5 million), Ken Griffin ($108.4 million), and Jeffrey and Janine Yass ($101.1 million)—all exclusively supported Donald Trump and other Republican candidates (with the exception of the Yasses, who gave a nominal $1,500 contribution on the Democratic side). The biggest donor on the liberal side was former New York City mayor and publisher Michael Bloomberg, who gave $64.3 million total, with all but $1 million going to the Democratic side. We have never seen so many nine-figure donors in an election, and with such lopsided giving. In the 2022 midterm elections, the sole nine-figure donor was George Soros ($178.8 million), with his contributions going to Democrats. In earlier election seasons, donations of this size were also rare: There were two in 2020 (Sheldon and Miriam Adelson and Michael Bloomberg) one in 2018 (Sheldon Adelson), and none before that.

My new one @slate.com: "The Ultrarich Have Reshaped Presidential Elections. Here’s Where They’re Looking Next.
Billionaire money could have even more of an impact on these races than it did on the 2024 election."
slate.com/news-and-pol...

Well wow. With just 3 precincts left, Dem James Malone is up by 800 votes in PA's #SD36. This is looking like an astonishing Dem flip in a Trump+15 seat, per our calculations. electionresults.lancastercountypa.gov/results/publ...

Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

Dozens more pregnant and postpartum women have died in Texas hospitals since the state banned abortion, our analysis shows.

As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, it rose in Texas by 33%.

Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Greg Casar on stage in Tucson in front a crowd of 23,000 people.

Tucson, Arizona today.

Original projected attendance was 3,000 people.

23,000 showed up.

Title: Both Liberal and Conservative Judges Rule Against Trump Description: A scatter plot showing the rulings of judges against or in favor of Trump, categorized by ideology using the DIME score. The x-axis represents Judge Ideology (DIME Score), ranging from liberal (-1) to conservative (1), and the y-axis represents the case outcome (against or for Trump). • Blue dots represent liberal judges, purple dots represent moderate judges, and red dots represent conservative judges. • Some judges are labeled, including Rudolph Contreras, Lauren King, John Coughenour, and James Emanuel Boasberg on the liberal to moderate side, and Carl Nichols, Richard J. Leon, and Joseph N. Laplante on the conservative side. • A note mentions that Boasberg, though slightly right-leaning, was initially appointed by George W. Bush. • The visualization suggests that judges from both ideological backgrounds ruled against Trump.

1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.

One thing everyone should understand is that DOGE has created the least efficient conditions for government I've ever seen.
*The working conditions are chaotic.
*No clear sense of who works there.
*Routine processes have been stopped.
*No planning can take place.
*People are incredibly demoralized.