I recently published an article examining South Korean perceptions of National Security Threats. My article was published in the News Lens, an outlet based in Taiwan. You can read my article here: https://international.thenewslens.com/article/141646

Florida voters will get to vote on an election reform proposal called “Amendment 3” on the November ballot. The words “election reform” and “Florida” tend to attract a lot of attention because Florida has a long history of controversial election results. This article will explain what the amendment is, who is supporting the amendment and why, and scrutinize their arguments.

What is Amendment 3?

Amendment 3 is a ballot referendum that would amend Florida’s state constitution to require open primaries for all state offices instead of party-based primaries. Open primaries, as defined by the proposed amendment, force all candidates in all parties to compete…

Since Senator Bernie Sanders has made it past Super Tuesday for the second election cycle in a row, I thought it would be worth analyzing his performance in Democratic primaries to understand how his coalition is built. Analysis of primary election results using a statistical processing software (PSPP) may provide insights on his performance in future primaries.

To analyze Sanders’ primary election performances, I have collected data on each primary from 2016 and 2020 using CNN’s record of the results as well as CNN’s exit poll data for demographic information. Results were recorded in my dataset in percentages to be…

There are people on both sides of the aisle who think that members of Congress should have a limited number of terms. These people often complain about really old members of Congress or members of Congress who have been around a long time who they disagree politically with. Since there have been increasing calls for Congressional term limits in recent years, let’s examine the potential implications of this proposed policy change.

One important overlooked advantage of having experienced legislators is that they know how to write bills. Critics of longtime lawmakers probably don’t realize that because they probably haven’t read…

After over a year of hard work, my research on piracy in the Yellow Sea has finally been published in World Outlook: The Dartmouth Journal of International Affairs. This is my first peer-reviewed publication, and it is the first peer-reviewed publication on this topic.

For those of you who are not familiar with my research, I started this project as my final paper for Dr. Timothy Rich’s Chinese Politics class in the Spring of 2018. In the same semester, I took Dr. Marc Eagle’s Pirates in World History class. As part of that course, we reviewed a report on modern…

Yesterday was the deadline for campaigns to file their fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Two things stood out to me. The first was the gap between the top five campaigns (Buttigieg, Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Harris) and everyone else. The second was the number of campaigns that posted a net loss of money from the first quarter.

All campaigns that began before the end of March and were outside of the top five in fundraising posted net funding losses for the quarter except for Julian Castro’s campaign. Castro avoided a net loss for the quarter with a…

The DNC recently announced higher standards to qualify for the fall debates. To qualify for the fall debates, candidates must reach 2% in four polls and gain 130,000 unique donors (up significantly from 1% in three polls or 65,000 unique donors). This will inevitably result in some candidates getting kicked off the debate stage, which will be fatal for those campaigns. While there have been some complaints about the requirements to qualify, the DNC’s rules are not the biggest problem for longshot campaigns.

There are two main things that tend to force candidates to drop out of Presidential Campaigns. The…

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has seen a surprising surge in the polls over the past month. Buttigieg has gone from being a complete unknown to being in third place in polls from Monmouth University and the University of New Hampshire. While the surge is notable and changes the dynamics of the race, the polling data shows that Buttigieg’s surge does not currently make him a serious contender for the Democratic nomination.

To explain my reasoning, I will use the Monmouth University polling data from April 23rd. The trends for Buttigieg’s coalition in the Monmouth poll mirror the trends…