Nov 11, 2020Three best practices for survey research from the 2020 electionAs we conclude this election cycle, pundits and clients alike are questioning what went wrong with the polls. …Election 20204 min readElection 20204 min read
Oct 7, 2020Cheap talk: the gap between social media political engagement and votingEven before the Covid-19 pandemic shifted the majority of our social lives online, social media has been the arena where many Americans expressed their political activism, advocacy, and anger. But does social media politicking translate into the ultimate political outcome of voting? My analysis of data from the 2018 Cooperative…Elections3 min readElections3 min read
Sep 19, 2020The potential power of Asian-American voters in the 2020 electionThough a small portion of the electorate, Asian-Americans could play a critical role in the 2020 presidential election. According to the Pew Research Center, Asian-Americans make up 5% of the eligible voting population and are the fastest growing ethnic or racial group of voters. However, Asian-Americans are historically politically apathetic…Election 20204 min readElection 20204 min read
Jul 14, 2020“Shock and Awe” data storytellingSmart use of comparison, conversion, and contextualization when sharing research findings are essential to effective data storytelling. Instead of listing results like a lab report or a phone book of numbers, using principles of shock and awe data storytelling help our data come to live. …Data6 min readData6 min read
Jul 8, 2020Ten Data CommandmentsDueling, as we are reminded in the cultural phenomenon that is Hamilton, was a critical part of America’s colonial and early national society. As we are reminded in song 15 of Act 1, even this most uncivilized way to resolve conflict had rules. Below is my re-imagining of these commandments…Data2 min readData2 min read
Jul 1, 2020Knowing what our data can’t sayWhen we do research, we are almost always working in data deficit environment. To do reasonable research, we need to balance we can say with the data we have with what we cannot say because we lack better data. In an ideal world, there would be perfect match between research…Data5 min readData5 min read
Jun 14, 2020In police-initiated encounters, Black Americans more likely to be arrested, incarcerated, treated violently, and killed.While police initiate contact with Black and White Americans at equal rates, Black Americans are over twice as likely to be arrested, over twice as likely to be threatened or experience use of force, and nearly three times more likely to be killed by police. …Police3 min readPolice3 min read
Jun 9, 2020The funnel of unequal justice shows over 294,000 Black Americans would not be incarcerated if they were white.In my last post, I show Black Americans were over twice as likely to be arrested than White Americans. But racial disparities persist beyond arrest to incarceration. Combining data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program with the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Prisoners Statistics program, I find arrested Black…BlackLivesMatter3 min readBlackLivesMatter3 min read
May 31, 2020George Floyd was not an outlier; a Black American is arrested every 15 seconds and murdered every 71 minutesIs recent violence against George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery, and Breonna Taylor an outlier amplified by social media or emblematic of systematic racism? This question should not only be answered with polemics, however passionate, but smart analysis of best available data. Bringing empirical analysis into the public square is essential for…George Floyd4 min readGeorge Floyd4 min read
May 26, 2020Excel is the American cheese of analyticsExcel is the American cheese of the analytics world. Like American cheese, Excel is underappreciated and derided as an inferior product to more sophisticated data management and statistical analyses solutions. Excel is a limited software platform that should not be used for purposes for which it is not well suited…Analytics4 min readAnalytics4 min read
