Alexander Theodoridis
Associate Professor of Political Science / Co-director of UMass Poll University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Amherst MA
Alex Theodoridis looks at the ways in which citizens interact with the political world in an era of hyper-polarization.
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Expertise
Biography
Much of his work applies new survey experimental and measurement paradigms to examine the implications of partisan identity and party cues for political cognition. He also studies public opinion as it relates to a variety of policy domains, especially environmental policy.
His work and writing is regularly featured by media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Scientific American, Time, CNN and The Economist .
Social Media
Video
Education
University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D.
Political Science
Harvard Kennedy School
M.P.P.
University of Virginia
B.A.
Politics and English
Select Recent Media Coverage
Let’s Not Lose Sight of Who Trump Is
The New York Times online
2024-11-08
Alexander Theodoridis, co-director of the UMass Poll, is one of several political scientists quoted in a column analyzing the significance of last week’s presidential election. “Americans, in poll after poll, told us how this result should be interpreted — as a reaction to inflation and personal economic unease among many voters,” Theodoridis says.
Trump says 82% says Americans think 2020 election was “rigged.” Polls, polling executives disagree
PolitiFact online
2024-03-07
Alex Theodoridis, co-director of the UMass Amherst Poll, comments on a claim by former President Donald Trump that 82% of Americans think the 2020 election was “rigged.” Available data shows that Trump’s claim is “absurd,” he says.
To what extent can Taylor Swift influence the 2024 presidential elections?
El Pais online
2024-02-04
Alex Theodoridis comments on music icon Taylor Swift’s potential influence on the 2024 presidential election. “If you support a candidate, is that going to change your fans’ way of thinking? No. It’s highly unlikely,” Theodoridis says. “What she will do is make her enthusiasm [for a candidate] known and spread it among her fans. Let them make donations, let them be volunteers. And to her fan base — which is disproportionately female and young — she’ll say: ‘hey, you guys have to be excited.’ And that enthusiasm is going to make a difference.”
Trump-Biden again? 10 American experts on the presidential campaign
Le Grand Continent online
2024-01-15
Alexander Theodoridis, professor of political science and co-director of the UMass Poll, is one of 10 political experts weighing in on the expected Joe Biden-Donald Trump presidential rematch. “Given the slow pace of the U.S. justice system and the likelihood of protracted appeals, I do not expect the multiple lawsuits filed against Trump to pose a practical obstacle to his presidential campaign,” Theodoridis says. “I also don't think the long list of accusations against the former president significantly weakens the support he enjoys among most Republican voters.”
‘This Is Grim,’ One Democratic Pollster Says
The New York Times
2023-12-06
Commenting on recent polling showing President Joe Biden with less support going into the 2024 election than he had in 2020, Alexander Theodoridis says, “Once Democrats come to terms with the fact that Biden will be the nominee (and, more importantly, that Trump will in all likelihood be the GOP nominee), a lot of the internal malaise expressed in current polls should dissipate.”
The Unsettling Truth About Trump’s First Great Victory
The New York Times
2022-03-22
Alexander Theodoridis is quoted in an opinion column about Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election.Theodoridis says, “Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016 was a stress test for Republican partisanship, and Republican partisanship passed with flying colors.”
Most Republicans think the 2020 election was stolen. Why?
Tampa Bay Times online
2022-06-16
Political scientist Alexander Theodoridis, associate director of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst poll, said partisan polarization makes agreement on the election results even harder to achieve.
“Partisans view the other side as morally bankrupt and capable of anything,” Theodoridis said. “This makes it nearly impossible to correct even the most egregious pieces of misinformation.”
UMass Amherst poll finds 71% of Republicans don't believe Biden was legitimately elected
WCVB online
2022-01-06
"What you see in these results is an America that really, based on partisan lines, is living in two diametrically opposed realities. You have Democrats on the one hand who, for the most part, tell us that Donald Trump was to blame," said Professor Alexander Theodoridis, Associate Director of the UMass Poll. "Then, on the other side, you have really blame spread across the Democratic party — Antifa, interestingly enough, and the Capitol Police, also — which is basically anyone but Donald Trump."
The Consequences Of Dehumanizing Language In Politics
NPR radio
2020-10-18
United States politicians are no strangers to using unkind language against their opponents. It's a trend that dates back to at least 1800 when, during the presidential campaign, Thomas Jefferson hired James Callender to slime John Adams. But Alexander Theodoridis, who teaches political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, says that today's partisanship can lend itself to particularly dehumanizing language not only between political opponents, but also between regular Americans who belong to opposite political parties.
Select Publications
American Democracy Has Been Caught in the Partisan Crossfire
Charles F. Kettering FoundationAlexander Theodoridis
2025-01-16
Alexander Theodoridis cites recent UMass Poll results while examining the fragile state of American democracy and growing concerns about the possible political violence in the country. “America’s crisis is borne of a dangerous interaction between mass-level partisan hyperpolarization, the cynical exploitation of it by some elites for personal or political advantage, and craven silence from many co-partisan leaders,” he writes.
Rooted in Racism? Race, Partisanship, Status Threat, and Public Opinion Toward Statehood for Washington, DC
Political Research Quarterly2023
In recent years, a number of prominent elected officials on both sides of the partisan divide have weighed in on the possibility of making Washington, D.C., the nation’s fifty-first state. While Democratic supporters of statehood for D.C. emphasize issues of equal representation, some Republican opponents have stressed the partisan and ideological consequences of D.C. statehood. Other Republican opponents, in justifying their position, have made the claim that Washington, D.C., lacks the necessary and sufficient characteristics associated with statehood, and these claims have been widely interpreted as implicitly racist appeals.
Americans just elected two lesbian governors. Have attitudes changed that much?
The Washington PostTatishe Nteta, Adam Eichen, Maddi Hertz, Ray La Raja, Jesse Rhodes and Alexander Theodoridis
2022-11-15
"Our research found sexism hurts candidates more than antigay attitudes, at least in Massachusetts"
Do Republicans really believe Trump won the 2020 election? Our research suggests that they do.
The Washington PostLane Cuthbert and Alexander Theodoridis
2022-01-07
"All credible evidence tells us that the 2020 election was very secure. Experts on both sides of the political aisle, and even President Donald Trump’s own Justice Department, have confirmed that 2020 was a free and fair election. Even a Republican-sponsored audit of Arizona’s results found no evidence of fraud or malfeasance."
Separated by politics? Disentangling the dimensions of discrimination
Political Behavior2022
How rampant is political discrimination in the United States, and how does it compare to other sources of bias in apolitical interactions? We employ a conjoint experiment to juxtapose the discriminatory effects of salient social categories across a range of contexts. The conjoint framework enables identification of social groups’ distinct causal effects, ceteris paribus, and minimizes ‘cheap talk,’ social desirability bias, and spurious conclusions from statistical discrimination. We find pronounced discrimination along the lines of party and ideology, as well as politicized identities such as religion and sexual orientation.
Primary divisions: How voters evaluate policy and group differences in intraparty contests
The Journal of Politics2022
While central to theories of polarization and primary elections, surprisingly little evidence shows that partisans favor candidates who take ideologically consistent issue positions, above other considerations, in intraparty contests. In this study, we investigate how voters weigh policy and nonpolicy differences when evaluating same-party politicians, using novel conjoint experiments that manipulate the demographic, biographical, and issue information of congressional candidates. We recruit 4,093 participants in the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, assigning half to either rate same-party candidates on an ideological scale or choose between them in primary-like settings.
Negative partisanship is not more prevalent than positive partisanship
Nature human behaviour2022
The dominant narrative among scholars and political pundits characterizes American partisanship as overwhelmingly negative, portraying citizens as more repelled by the opposing party than attached to their own party. To assess the valence of partisan identity, we use various measures collected from several new and existing nationally representative surveys and behavioural outcomes obtained from two experiments. Our findings consistently depart from the negative partisanship narrative. For the majority of Americans, partisanship is either equally positive and negative or more positive than negative.
