Brendan Nyhan

New NYT: Persuasion effects of fake news overblown

From my new Upshot column:

How easy is it to change people’s votes in an election?

The answer, a growing number of studies conclude, is that most forms of political persuasion seem to have little effect at all.

This conclusion may sound jarring at a time when people are concerned about the effects of the false news articles that flooded Facebook and other online outlets during the 2016 election. Observers speculated that these so-called fake news articles swung the election to Donald J. Trump. Similar suggestions of large persuasion effects, supposedly pushing Mr. Trump to victory, have been made about online advertising from the firm Cambridge Analytica and content promoted by Russian bots.

Much more remains to be learned about the effects of these types of online activities, but people should not assume they had huge effects.

New research on fake news consumption in 2016

My new research on fake news consumption with Andrew Guess and Jason Reifler:

Selective Exposure to Misinformation: Evidence from the consumption of fake news during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign

Though some warnings about online “echo chambers” have been hyperbolic, tendencies toward selective exposure to politically congenial content are likely to extend to misinformation and to be exacerbated by social media platforms. We test this prediction using data on the factually dubious articles known as “fake news.” Using unique data combining survey responses with individual-level web traffic histories, we estimate that approximately 1 in 4 Americans visited a fake news website from October 7-November 14, 2016. Trump supporters visited the most fake news websites, which were overwhelmingly pro-Trump. However, fake news consumption was heavily concentrated among a small group — almost 6 in 10 visits to fake news websites came from the 10% of people with the most conservative online information diets. We also find that Facebook was a key vector of exposure to fake news and that fact-checks of fake news almost never reached its consumers.

Coverage in today's New York Times:

Fake news evolved from seedy internet sideshow to serious electoral threat so quickly that behavioral scientists had little time to answer basic questions about it, like who was reading what, how much real news they also consumed and whether targeted fact-checking efforts ever hit a target.

Sure, surveys abound, asking people what they remember reading. But these are only as precise as the respondents’ shifty recollections and subject to a malleable definition of “fake.” The term “fake news” itself has evolved into an all-purpose smear, used by politicians and the president to deride journalism they don’t like.

But now the first hard data on fake-news consumption has arrived. Researchers last week posted an analysis of the browsing histories of thousands of adults during the run-up to the 2016 election — a real-time picture of who viewed which fake stories, and what real news those people were seeing at the same time.

The reach of fake news was wide indeed, the study found, yet also shallow. One in four Americans saw at least one false story, but even the most eager fake-news readers — deeply conservative supporters of President Trump — consumed far more of the real kind, from newspaper and network websites and other digital sources.

"You're Fake News!" The Poynter Media Trust Survey

From a new report released yesterday (co-authored with Andy Guess and Jason Reifler):

During the Trump presidency, the United States has witnessed unprecedented attacks on the press from the highest office in the land. It is essential to understand how these attacks have affected attitudes toward the press. This report presents results of a public opinion and behavioral study designed to gauge the public’s support for the media in these difficult times. Encouragingly, we find that the public supports the press, albeit weakly. However, this result masks dramatic polarization in media attitudes. Specifically, we show that Republicans and Trump supporters have far more negative attitudes toward the press than Democrats and Trump opponents, especially among respondents with high levels of political knowledge. Republicans and Trump supporters are also far more likely to endorse extreme claims about media fabrication, to describe journalists as an enemy of the people, and to support restrictions on press freedom. These differences in media attitudes are reflected in polarized information diets on our behavioral measures, though to a lesser extent than people’s self-reports of the outlets they read suggest. Finally, we show that exposure to anti-media messages, including an attack by Trump on “fake news,” have relatively limited effects on attitudes toward the press.

New Monkey Cage: A new way to fight misinformation

From my new Monkey Cage post (co-authored with Yusaku Horiuchi):

State-sponsored propaganda like the recently unmasked @TEN_GOP Twitter account is of very real concern for our democracy. But we should not allow the debate over Russian interference to crowd out concerns about homegrown misinformation, which was vastly more prevalent during and after the 2016 election...

One promising approach [to countering misinformation] is summary fact-checking — an increasingly popular format that presents an overview of fact-checking ratings for a politician. This is distinct from focusing on whether a single statement is true or false; rather, it evaluates a group of such statements, assessing a speaker’s overall truthfulness and reliability as a source. Though the statements in question are of course not randomly chosen, the format may be an effective way to increase the costs of repeatedly making false statements.

One of us (Nyhan) investigated the effect of this format in three experimental studies conducted in 2016 and 2017 in collaboration with different undergraduate co-authors at Dartmouth.

New NYT: Facebook's fact-checking should be checked

From my new Upshot column:

Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook has taken a number of actions to prevent the continued distribution of false news articles on its platform, most notably by labeling articles rated as false or misleading by fact checkers as “disputed.”

But how effective are these measures?

To date, Facebook has offered little information to the public other than a recent email to fact checkers asserting that labeled articles receive 80 percent fewer impressions. But more data is necessary to determine the success of these efforts. Research (including my own) suggests the need to carefully evaluate the effectiveness of Facebook’s interventions.

New Bright Line Watch survey results

The results of our third survey of the state of American democracy are out:

Given widespread concern about the possible erosion of democracy in the United States, Bright Line Watch has conducted expert surveys since early 2017 asking thousands of professional political scientists to identify the dimensions of democracy they see as most important and to rate how well the U.S. is performing on them. But does the public agree with those assessments?

...The public is quite concerned about the state of U.S. democracy, especially those who disapprove of President Trump. Americans’ ratings of democratic performance are often worse than those of experts, especially in the areas experts identify as the most important. In general, experts seem to have a less negative view of how well U.S. democracy is doing than the public.

From coverage by Ezra Klein at Vox:

In February 2017, four political scientists formed Bright Line Watch. Their mission was a chilling sign of the times, a reflection of the fears that swept across the United States as Donald Trump swept into office. They existed, they said, to “monitor the status of democratic practices and highlight potential threats to American democracy.” The danger was from our new president, and from ourselves...

Since the launch of Trump’s presidency, Bright Line Watch has conducted repeated surveys of political scientists on the state of American democracy. The third wave of results, which will be presented at a conference on threats to American democracy on Friday, contains good news of a sort: Trump’s presidency, at least in the view of these experts, has not done visible damage to the workings of the American political system.

New NYT: Why Puerto Rico misperceptions matter

From my new Upshot column (co-authored with Kyle Dropp):

More than three million Americans in Puerto Rico are struggling to meet basic needs after a devastating strike from Hurricane Maria, but their plight seems to be attracting far less public or political attention than the woes caused by the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida.

One potential explanation is the congested news environment. Over the weekend, for instance, President Trump reignited a debate over whether N.F.L. players should kneel during the national anthem, crowding the hurricane out of the headlines.

The lack of functioning power and communications in Puerto Rico has also hindered reporting on the storm.

But another explanation is simpler: Many Americans don’t realize that what happened in Puerto Rico is a domestic disaster, not a foreign one.

New Politico Magazine: Why norms matter

From my new article in the ideas issue of Politico Magazine:

The calls for Donald Trump to release his tax returns began early during the campaign and never really let up. It was easy to assume he eventually would make good on his promises to turn them over. Every president since Jimmy Carter had released his taxes; Trump would have to do the same, right?

What we’ve learned since then, of course, is that Trump didn’t have to reveal anything. The Constitution doesn’t require disclosure; plenty of federal officials need to submit their tax returns to the Senate, but not the president. It’s just a norm.

One of the crucial lessons of the past year, turns out, is just how much of American politics is governed not by written law, but by norms like these.

New Vox interview on Trump's misinformation

I'm interviewed by Carlos Maza of Vox in this video about the difficulty of correcting Donald Trump's misinformation. Here's the text introduction:

President Donald Trump made roughly 500 false statements in the first 200 days of his presidency, according to the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale. That’s an impressive amount of misinformation, and it’s turned news networks into full-time fact-checking organizations, with journalists frequently having to pause their regular programming to debunk Trump’s latest tweet or public statement.

But all that fact-checking hasn’t stopped many Trump supporters from believing misinformation to be true. Two-thirds of Republican voters still believe millions of people voted illegally during the election. A majority of Trump supporters think Obama spied on him during the campaign, and almost half still think Trump won the popular vote.

How is that possible? Why isn’t fact-checking enough to convince people to abandon inaccurate political beliefs?

Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist who’s spent years studying the effects of fact-checking, says the durability of those false beliefs isn’t unique to Trump supporters — it represents a basic problem with human psychology.

On the Media interview on the backfire effect

My new interview with Brooke Gladstone of On the Media about my new research into the effects of corrective information and the role of doubt in science (MP3):

Once people have a misconception about the news, it can be extremely difficult to make them change their minds – even in the face of hard evidence. Studies have even shown the existence of a “backfire effect,” whereby facts can make people double-down on their false ideas. As Brendan Nyhan, professor of government at Dartmouth College and one of the researchers behind the discovery of the backfire effect, explained to Brooke in 2009, “people were so successful at bringing to mind reasons the correction was wrong that they actually ended up being more convinced than the people who didn’t receive the correction.”

After new research, however, it seems that the backfire effect might not be as strong as once thought – giving hope to anyone invested in the pursuit of a more truthful world. Brooke speaks with Nyhan again about the significance of this new finding and the role of doubt in moving science forward.

Trumpcast interview on the President's dishonesty

My new interview with Virginia Heffernan on Slate's Trumpcast (MP3):

Virginia Heffernan talks to Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth, about the president’s many lies, including those in the New York Times interview with Maggie Haberman, Peter Baker, and Michael S. Schmidt.

New NYT: Is Trump's base support exaggerated?

From my new Upshot column:

Donald J. Trump’s approval ratings are the lowest at this stage of a presidency since modern polling began in the mid-20th century. But his party’s base still appears highly supportive, which has discouraged Republicans in Congress from abandoning the president and his legislative agenda.

Even the most recent Russia revelations seemingly haven’t dented support for Mr. Trump among Republicans, who continue to approve of his job performance at very high rates — 82 percent in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Sunday, for instance.

But numbers like these may mask a decline in support for Mr. Trump among his original party base.

New Bright Line Watch survey results

At Bright Line Watch, we have released the results of our second expert survey on the state of American democracy. Here is coverage at The Upshot by Claire Cain Miller and Kevin Quealy (where I am a contributor):

American democracy remains healthy, but its health has worsened for the first time in recent history, according to a new survey of 1,126 political scientists.

Three-quarters of respondents said the quality of United States democracy had declined in the last two years, after four decades of stability. Twenty-one percent said there had been no change, and 4 percent said it was healthier.

The survey was the second by Bright Line Watch, a group formed by academics after the presidential election to study democratic performance in the United States over time. Compared with the first survey, conducted in February, a month into Donald J. Trump’s presidency, they said the country was doing worse on a few core democratic principles.

For more, see the Bright Line Watch website.

NHPR interview on liberal conspiracy theories

My new interview with New Hampshire Public Radio's Rick Ganley about the spread of liberal conspiracy theories during the Trump administration (MP3):

Many of these conspiracy theories or fake news stories have to do with Trump and his campaign’s connections to Russia. What are you seeing?

"I’m seeing a disturbing trend of people taking the very serious and real questions about Russian interference and using that as a pretext for all sorts of wild and unsupported conspiracy theories. These are often coming from internet personalities and people who work on social media, but they’re infiltrating into the discourse more generally through liberal elites who are amplifying them. So we’re seeing a spread of these claims out into the mainstream in a way that I think is potentially worrisome."

See also my article for The Upshot and Zack Beauchamp's piece for Vox on this issue.

New NYT: How marching for science risks politicizing it

From my new Upshot column:

Before the recent March for Science, scholars and journalists debated the likely effect of the protest: Would it defend science against politicization or unnecessarily polarize the public on the value of the scientific enterprise?

Some early evidence suggests the march may have widened the divide among liberals and conservatives in their views of scientists but not, crucially, toward the research they conduct.

VPR interview on democratic norms after first 100 days

My new interview with Vermont Public Radio's Mitch Wertlieb on the state of democratic norms in the United States (MP3):

Have your concerns about an erosion of political norms been eased, or have they increased?

“I would say there's good news and bad news. Certainly some of the most extreme fears haven't been realized, and that's of course welcome.

“But I think in some ways those fears have been caricatured. There was a whole Wall Street Journal editorial that basically said, ‘Trump isn’t Hitler, therefore everyone's worries about him are invalid.’

“And I think that's both the wrong comparison, and we're at far too early a stage to draw any final conclusions about where we are or what damage may be done.”

See also my prior interviews with Wertlieb in December and January on this topic.

New CNN: Conspiracy theories transcend political party

A segment in which I'm interviewed from CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper:

New NYT: Why false claims continue to be believed

From my new Upshot column (co-authored with Amanda Taub):

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” goes the saying — one that now seems like a relic of simpler times.

Today, President Trump is sticking with his own facts — his claim that the Obama administration wiretapped him during the election — in the face of testimony to the contrary by the F.B.I. director, James Comey...

Mr. Trump’s claims may appear to his opponents to have been embarrassingly debunked. But social science research suggests that Mr. Trump’s alternative version of reality may appeal to his supporters.

Partisan polarization is now so extreme in the United States that it affects the way that people consume and understand information — the facts they believe, and what events they think are important. The wiretapping allegations could well become part of a partisan narrative that is too powerful to be dispelled.

Bright Line Watch expert survey on U.S. democracy

The Bright Line Watch initiative that I am co-organizing with John Carey (Dartmouth), Gretchen Helmke (Rochester), and Susan Stokes (Yale) has released its first expert survey results on the state of American democracy:

Despite an atmosphere of pessimism or panic among many observers and public intellectuals, the political science community holds a rather nuanced view of democratic governance in the United States as of February 2017. They rate the U.S. as performing well on many of the criteria that they say are most important for democracy. For instance, 86% say the United States fully or mostly meets the standard that elections are free and fair and approximately 80% say the same for the standards of protecting free speech and the judiciary limiting executive power.

The results, however, also provide significant reason for concern. Fewer than two-thirds (66%) are as confident that journalists can operate unimpeded by the state, that the elected branches respect judicial independence (65%), or that government agencies are not used to monitor and harass political opponents (60%). Only the barest majorities are confident that Congress can effectively check the executive or that executive authority can be constrained within constitutional limits (52% and 51%, respectively).

For more, see coverage at The Upshot and our mission statement on the Bright Line Watch website.

New NYT: Why Dems are embracing conspiracy theories

From my new Upshot column:

Even as Democrats decry the false claims streaming regularly from the White House, they appear to have become more vulnerable to unsupported claims and conspiracy theories that flatter their own political prejudices. The reason isn’t just that a Republican now occupies the White House. Political psychology research suggests that losing political control can make people more vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.

New NYT: The Obamacare/ACA confusion

From my new Upshot column (co-authored with Kyle Dropp):

A sizable minority of Americans don’t understand that Obamacare is just another name for the Affordable Care Act.

These findings, from a poll by Morning Consult, illustrate the extent of public confusion over a health law that President Trump and Republicans in Congress hope to repeal.

New NYT: The GOP's incentive to stick with Trump

From my new Upshot column (co-authored with Kyle Dropp):

Despite the growing protests against President Trump’s executive action on refugees and other people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, relatively few members of his party have spoken out against the policy — a familiar pattern since the election. To date, no congressional Republicans have consistently resisted Mr. Trump or his agenda even though his approval ratings are already historically low for a new president.

Although some Republicans may fear a voter backlash in the midterm election, the greatest threat to re-election for most G.O.P. members of Congress is still a primary challenge. That’s what many legislators probably fear they will get if they oppose Mr. Trump, who is viewed overwhelmingly favorably among their partisan base, according to polling data.

VPR interview on Trump damaging democratic norms

My new interview with Vermont Public Radio's Mitch Wertlieb (MP3):

Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Friday. A Dartmouth professor has been arguing that Trump's candidacy and presidential campaign have steadily eroded the political norms that provide a solid foundation for American democracy.

Prior to the inauguration, VPR checked in with Brendan Nyhan, a professor in the department of government at Dartmouth College, to get his take on the transition period before Donald Trump officially takes office.

See also my prior interview with Wertlieb on the same topic (MP3).

The state of American democracy

My Inauguration Day Twitter essay: The state of American democracy

New NYT: How Trump news overload smothers scandal

From my new Upshot column:

The bar for scandal in the Trump administration keeps being raised.

Every week brings potentially damaging developments that in other contexts could have generated weekslong controversies. With so many competing stories, however, they are frequently ignored or forgotten.

As a result, even negative coverage can sometimes benefit President-elect Donald J. Trump by displacing potentially more damaging stories from the news agenda.

New ProPublica/VPR interviews on democratic norms

My interview with Eric Umansky on the Pro Publica podcast:

See also my interview with Mitch Wertlieb on Vermont Public Radio, which can't be embedded directly (MP3).

New Primary Concerns podcast interview

My interview with Brian Beutler of The New Republic on his Primary Concerns podcast:

New Atlantic Q&A on eroding democratic norms

An interview with Clare Foran of The Atlantic inspired by my recent tweetstorm:

I think people are making the mistake of thinking that there will be a dramatic moment when they should speak out. Growing tolerance for conflicts of interest in government, limitations on media access and accountability, and harsh treatment of minority groups can accumulate. Similarly, the slow disappearance of various norms can damage our democracy when we’re not paying attention. Hopefully the worst-case scenario never happens—no one is saying the U.S. government is disappearing overnight—but each norm that falls is one fewer safeguard against executive overreach than we had before. Even if we never become an authoritarian state, our governance will suffer as a result.

New NYT: How Trump could reshape the party system

From my new Upshot column:

Donald J. Trump’s victory could well push the American party system toward a clash between an overwhelmingly white ethnic party and a cosmopolitan coalition of minority groups and college-educated whites.

Despite the unexpected result, Mr. Trump lost the popular vote in an election that in some respects closely resembled Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney in 2012 — an ordinary end to a very abnormal campaign. The power of party identification held approximately 90 percent of Republicans in Mr. Trump’s camp.

However, Mr. Trump’s campaign may set in motion a process that reorients American politics toward the cosmopolitanism versus nationalism divide that he emphasized, reconfiguring our party system and shaping our politics for decades to come. The power of social identity suggests that such a dynamic could be difficult to stop once set in motion.

New NYT: Fact-checking can change views

From my new Upshot column:

A lot of time and effort has been spent correcting the falsehoods, lies, rumors and conspiracy theories promoted by politicians during this election — most notably by Donald J. Trump. Does it do any good? Or have we entered a “post-fact” age?

In some cases, research I have conducted with the political scientist Jason Reifler has found that correcting people’s false beliefs can be ineffective or, worse, make them cling to their views even more strongly.

However, other research we have done suggests that fact-checking can be effective. The political scientists Thomas Wood and Ethan Porter have also found corrective information is generally effective in reducing false beliefs, though the extent to which it is effective can depend on people’s political views.

The four of us decided to evaluate the effectiveness of corrective information in reducing misperceptions during this election.

New NYT: Voters not outraged over FBI disclosure

From my new Upshot column (co-authored with Kyle Dropp):

Hillary Clinton and President Obama are outraged about the F.B.I. director James Comey’s decision to disclose further inquiries into her handling of confidential email, but are the American people?

Although numerous prosecutors and former Department of Justice officials have accused Mr. Comey of violating formal guidelines and informal norms against commenting on continuing investigations or publicizing political cases just before elections, voters do not seem to share their indignation.

New NYT: Birtherism diminished but far from dead

From my new Upshot column (co-authored with Kyle Dropp):

America’s most prominent birther has finally disavowed the myth he helped to create. Will Donald J. Trump’s concession affect the public’s belief about whether President Obama was born in the United States?

Results from a new Morning Consult poll of registered voters suggest that fewer Americans now believe that President Obama was born outside the country — the false claim that Mr. Trump renounced last Friday — although birtherism continues to linger among a subset of the public.

New NYT: The effects of gaffes and health concerns

From my new Upshot column:

Hillary Clinton undoubtedly had a tough weekend, but how much will it affect the election?

On Friday night, Mrs. Clinton said half of Donald J. Trump’s supporters belonged in “the basket of deplorables” — “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.” Survey data suggests that a substantial fraction of Mr. Trump’s supporters do hold deeply negative views of several demographic groups, but after heavy criticism she said, “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong.”

Then on Sunday, Mrs. Clinton staggered in public. Following hours of uncertainty, her campaign disclosed that she had previously been diagnosed with pneumonia, prompting renewed questions about her health and her secretive tendencies.

Both episodes are receiving extensive news media coverage, but past experience shows that what many consider to be gaffes typically have very limited effects on the actual vote. Candidate health issues, however, could be more unpredictable.

New NYT: The paradox of echo chambers

From my new Upshot column:

Anyone who has followed this election carefully would be forgiven for thinking that voters have diverged into two separate realities. But it’s too soon to declare that we have entered a “post-fact” apocalypse, especially when we consider where people get information about politics.

New research shows that the great majority of people learn about political news from mainstream, relatively centrist media sources, not ideological websites or cable channels. However, relatively small numbers of partisans, especially Republicans, are heavy consumers of a highly polarized media diet.

This dynamic helps explain why there is so much concern about “echo chambers,” even though most people don’t confine themselves to one.

New NYT: The problem with Trump's "rigged" claim

From my new Upshot column:

As public support turns against him, Donald Trump is suggesting without evidence that the election could be “rigged” by Democrats using vote fraud. This claim threatens the norms of American elections and could provoke a damaging reaction among his supporters.

Ultimately, democracies depend on losers’ acceptance of the legitimacy of the political process. That’s why the norm of accepting election outcomes among defeated presidential candidates is so important.

New Monkey Cage: The "missing 28 pages" won't help

From a new Monkey Cage post co-authored with my former students Sasha Dudding and Heather Szilagyi:

Last month, the House Intelligence Committee released a previously classified section of the 2002 congressional inquiry into the September 11 attacks known as the missing “28 pages.” The U.S. government allegedly kept this document confidential to protect its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Instead, the move ended up fueling a massive controversy centered on claims of a cover-up by the U.S. government intended to suppress evidence of Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

Our research helps explain why withholding information from government documents like the “28 pages” is so often counterproductive. In a new article (written with co-authors at Dartmouth College) in the Journal of Experimental Political Science, we show how the use of redactions can undermine the effectiveness of documents intended to reduce belief in conspiracy theories. Keeping information from the public can create the perception of a cover-up even when none exists.

Our post is based on our new article in the Journal of Experimental Political Science (ungated), which was co-authored with the students in my 2014 Experiments in Politics seminar:

Classified or Coverup? The Effect of Redactions on Conspiracy Theory Beliefs

Brendan Nyhan, Franklin Dickinson, Sasha Dudding, Enxhi Dylgjeri, Eric Neiley, Christopher Pullerits, Minae Seog, Andy Simpson, Heather Szilagyi and Colin Walmsley

Conspiracy theories are prevalent among the public. Governments frequently release official documents attempting to explain events that inspire these beliefs. However, these documents are often heavily redacted, a practice that lay epistemic theory suggests might be interpreted as evidence for a conspiracy. To investigate this possibility, we tested the effect of redactions on beliefs in a well-known conspiracy theory. Results from two preregistered experiments indicate that conspiracy beliefs were higher when people were exposed to seemingly redacted documents compared to when they were exposed to unredacted documents that were otherwise identical. In addition, unredacted documents consistently lowered conspiracy beliefs relative to controls while redacted documents had reduced or null effects, suggesting that lay epistemic interpretations of the redactions undermined the effect of information in the documents. Our findings, which do not vary by conspiracy predispositions, suggest policymakers should be more transparent when releasing documents to refute misinformation.

New NYT: Trump's strategy on crime

From my new Upshot column:

In declaring himself "the law and order candidate" in his convention speech Thursday night, Donald Trump officially made crime one of his core issues. This emphasis is relatively new, and it's strategic.

New NYT: The Clinton case in context

From my new Upshot column:

The F.B.I. recommendation on Tuesday not to file charges against Hillary Clinton for what the director James Comey called her “extremely careless” email practices has set off a debate over whether there was any partisan influence in the case.

The issue came to the fore last week when news broke that former President Bill Clinton had boarded Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s plane. Though both sides insisted they had not discussed the case against Mrs. Clinton, the resulting furor prompted Ms. Lynch to vow to accept the recommendation of career prosecutors and the F.B.I. on whether to file charges.

In his announcement of the recommendation, which is likely to be endorsed by prosecutors at the Department of Justice, Mr. Comey said that the investigation had not been subject to outside influence.

Mr. Comey’s claim carries credibility given his status as a Republican who served in the George W. Bush administration. The case was also extraordinary in its level of importance and scrutiny — which may have created pressure to avoid any appearance of affecting the November election — and may not fit previous patterns. However, the historical record suggests that politically sensitive cases are often not immune from politics, especially in the timing of when they are resolved.

New NYT: Don't assume Trump voters naïve

From my new Upshot column:

Donald Trump keeps making promises that experts don’t think he can possibly fulfill. It might seem that he has people fooled by his implausible claims, which include pledges to make Mexico pay for a border wall and to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. The psychologist David Dunning, for instance, has suggested that many voters are backing Mr. Trump because they lack the expertise to recognize his mistakes.

But in some news reports, his supporters sound more realistic about what Mr. Trump, the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, could accomplish as president.

New NYT: Not time for change to Trump?

From my new Upshot column:

With Donald Trump’s unfavorable ratings at record levels, the Republican Party’s prospects for taking back the White House already seem bleak. But its chances may be even worse yet. The doubts Mr. Trump has raised during his primary campaign also undermine the strongest rationale for any Republican candidate in this election: the need for new leadership after eight years of Democratic control of the White House.

On the Media interview on third party fantasies

The Media's Third Party Delusion:

New NYT: The triggers for Trumpism

From my new Upshot column:

There is no one quite like Donald Trump — as either a human being or a presidential candidate. While he has been compared to populist insurgents like George Wallace and Ross Perot, neither came as close to the presidency as Mr. Trump will be if he secures the G.O.P. nomination.

But when we look beyond this country, we can see that Mr. Trump’s playbook is neither unique nor uniquely successful.

How we got here on Trump: A tweetstorm

New NYT: Hillary Clinton's flawed message

From my new Upshot column:

Political campaigns are supposed to promise hope and change, but Hillary Clinton is not offering enough of either — one of the most important reasons that she barely won Iowa and lost by a wide margin to Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire.

New NYT: The downside of dynastic politics

From my new Upshot column:

Why have Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton struggled so much during this campaign? It might seem as if the public is weary of Bushes and Clintons and has turned against dynastic politics, but voters don’t usually punish politicians for being members of political families. Becoming a long-term member of the House of Representatives, for example, substantially increases the odds that a relative will also serve in Congress.

But the advantages that dynastic candidates enjoy come at a cost: Those who end up seeking the presidency may discover that they lack the campaign skills of other credible contenders.

New NYT: The obstacles to a Bloomberg win

From my new Upshot column:

The dream of a centrist third-party presidential candidate will never die.

Michael Bloomberg, the media billionaire and former New York City mayor, is once again considering running for president, but how broad is his appeal?

Although he may wish to portray himself as a centrist alternative to more extreme presidential contenders, Mr. Bloomberg wouldn’t enter the race with a public image that is especially conducive to a third-party run.

New NYT: The downside of Trump touting his polls

From my new Upshot column:

Donald Trump misses no opportunity to remind us that he’s ahead in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination. During a rally in Claremont, N.H., last week, he said, “When people say, ‘Why do you always talk about the polls?’ I say, ‘Because I’m winning!’ Believe me, if I’m not winning, I don’t talk about them.”

Many pundits interpret these kind of statements as a reflection of Mr. Trump’s ego, which is not an unreasonable view. He does like talking about himself. But he may also be trying to generate a bandwagon effect, a well-documented phenomenon in political science but one that may leave him vulnerable to future disruptions.

New research on journalistic fact-checking

I have a new article out in the Journal of Communication with Lucas Graves and Jason Reifler on the reasons journalists engage in fact-checking (ungated preprint):

Understanding Innovations in Journalistic Practice: A Field Experiment Examining Motivations for Fact-Checking
Lucas Graves, Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler

Why has fact-checking spread so quickly within U.S. political journalism? In the first field experiment conducted among reporters, we varied journalist exposure to messages that highlight either audience demand for fact-checking or the prestige it enjoys within the profession. Our results indicate that messages promoting the high status and journalistic values of fact-checking increased the prevalence of fact-checking coverage, while messages about audience demand were somewhat less successful. These findings suggest that political fact-checking is driven primarily by professional motives within journalism, a finding that helps us understand the process by which the practice spreads within the press as well as the factors that influence the behavior of journalists.

New NYT: Trump's misdiagnosis of extremist opinion

From my new Upshot column:

On Monday, Donald Trump singled out American Muslims as supporting repression and violence, citing a discredited poll from an anti-Muslim group as evidence for imposing border restrictions. But if he is worried about extremist public opinion in the United States, he should take a broader look around.

Research shows that Muslim Americans are less likely to endorse violence against civilians than other religious groups. Moreover, the evidence suggests that a non-trivial minority of Americans of all faiths and backgrounds is willing to endorse the sorts of violence against the government and repressive legal measures that Mr. Trump accused Muslims of disproportionately supporting.

New On the Media interview on fact-checking

My interview with Brooke Gladstone about the prospects for fact-checking in the age of Trump:

(I also did a related interview on fact-checking and Trump with New Hampshire Public Radio.)