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Prior research has shown that racial minority groups are more likely than Whites to hold negative views of Jews. We discuss several theories that may explain this phenomenon, including group competition, anti-White attitudes manifesting as antisemitism, spillover from anti-Israel attitudes, and more. Some theories, especially those developed in the mid-20th century, may be less applicable today, particularly to young adults. Through an original survey of 3,500 Americans, including an oversample of 18–30 year olds, we discover that antisemitic views remain far more common among minorities than Whites, especially among young people. However, the racial differences do not seem to be explained by common theories cited and explored in prior literature. But with Black and Hispanic Americans agreeing with antisemitic statements at similar levels as White alt-right identifiers in our sample, our findings call for renewed interest in the topic of race and antisemitism.

Over the last two decades, a rift has emerged on the US political left regarding the State of Israel. Public polling has shown that young people and the ideological far left have developed distinctly negative views toward Israel. In the fall of 2020, we surveyed 3500 US adults, including oversampling of 2500 adults aged 18–30. We first explore the young left’s views toward Israel in comparison to how they view other foreign countries, and in comparison to how older adults and more conservative adults view Israel. We then ask whether their negative views toward Israel are explained by an issue prioritization of the Israel/Palestine conflict (no). Finally, we ask whether the young left’s negative attitudes toward Israel are focused on Israel’s politics and government or on other features of the country, such as its cultures and religions (it’s both). Overall, the young left evaluates Israel like it evaluates US adversaries such as Russia and Iran, whereas the center and right evaluate Israel like they evaluate other US allies, such as Mexico and India.

In the late 2010s, antisemitism re-emerged as a topic of concern in the United States following a series of high-profile violent attacks on Jewish institutions. These concerns intensified following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the ensuing war in Gaza, and the rise of mass pro-Palestinian protests, which together sparked renewed national debates over what constitutes antisemitism. As a result, antisemitism has now become a central and contested issue in American political life. This dissertation examines antisemitism and Jewish politics in the United States in the context of this transformation. The first chapter examines the ideological distribution of antisemitic attitudes in America using an original survey of 3,500 Americans in 2020. We test the \"horseshoe theory\" hypothesis that antisemitism is equally prevalent on the far left and the far right. We find no evidence for this pattern, instead finding that antisemitic attitudes appear substantially stronger on the far right, particularly among young adults. We do find some evidence of an anti-Jewish double standard among the left, but even those anti-Jewish attitudes among the left are smaller in magnitude3 than those on the right. The second chapter looks at anti-Israel sentiment among Americans, particularly among young and far left ones, using the same 3,500-person sample. We find that younger and further left Americans do hold distinctly negative views of Israel compared to older and/or more conservative Americans. We examine whether their negative views are explained by an issue prioritization of the Israel/Palestine conflict or are focused only on Israel's government, but neither explanation appears to explain the findings. Negative views towards Israel persist even when respondents were asked to specifically evaluate Israel's culture and religion. The third chapter turns to Jewish Americans themselves. Using a new sampling methodology to survey Jewish Americans, I examine Jewish American attitudes around antisemitism and Israel. I find that Jewish American opinion is highly divided but consistently organized around partisan lines, with certain denominational affiliations and the salience of Jewish identity aligning to produce distinct clusters of opinion. Voter file analysis reveals little evidence of a large-scale partisan realignment among Jewish Americans since October 7, despite popular narratives around Jewish Americans becoming less Democratic. Observed polarization around attitudes thus appears to reflect pre-existing partisan divides rather than recent political shifts. These chapters demonstrate how antisemitism and opinions towards Israel have become embedded within broader patterns of American political polarization. Both antisemitic attitudes and views towards Israel in the mass public appear to be explained by both partisan and generational divides. Among Jewish Americans, attitudes towards Israel, antisemitism, and other Jewish topics are similarly polarized along partisan lines, while also shaped by denominational affiliation and the salience of Jewish identity. This dissertation shows how recent debates over antisemitism and Israel reflect and reinforce broader divisions in American political life.

Sampling geographically dispersed minority populations poses substantial challenges when individual group membership cannot be directly observed. Although stratified sampling can offer efficiency gains, these gains are typically modest unless the minority population is highly concentrated within a small number of strata. In this paper, we propose using Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG) to enhance the efficiency of minority population sampling. BISG generates individual-level probabilities of minority group membership based on names and residential addresses. We incorporate these probabilities into a stratified Poisson probability sampling design. Applying the proposed approach to a national survey of Jewish Americans, we find that our estimates closely align with those from a large-scale Pew Research Center survey of the same population, which relied on a substantially more expensive sampling strategy involving geographic stratification and screening. At a fraction of the cost, our survey reproduces nearly identical patterns observed by Pew, including estimates of religious denominations and participation in specific religious activities.

MANY Democratic voters and activists are giddy abo ut their party's chances of retaking the House in 2018. Savoring surprise victories in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Virginia, they have visions of a blue wave election.

A potential blue wave may crash up against a wall of extreme gerrymandering.

Introduced rodent populations pose significant threats worldwide, with particularly severe impacts on islands. Advancements in genome editing have motivated interest in synthetic gene drives that could potentially provide efficient and localized suppression of invasive rodent populations. Application of such technologies will require rigorous population genomic surveys to evaluate population connectivity, taxonomic identification, and to inform design of gene drive localization mechanisms. One proposed approach leverages the predicted shifts in genetic variation that accompany island colonization, wherein founder effects, genetic drift, and island‐specific selection are expected to result in locally fixed alleles (LFA) that are variable in neighboring nontarget populations. Engineering of guide RNAs that target LFA may thus yield gene drives that spread within invasive island populations, but would have limited impacts on nontarget populations in the event of an escape. Here we used pooled whole‐genome sequencing of invasive mouse (Mus musculus) populations on four islands along with paired putative source populations to test genetic predictions of island colonization and characterize locally fixed Cas9 genomic targets. Patterns of variation across the genome reflected marked reductions in allelic diversity in island populations and moderate to high degrees of differentiation from nearby source populations despite relatively recent colonization. Locally fixed Cas9 sites in female fertility genes were observed in all island populations, including a small number with multiplexing potential. In practice, rigorous sampling of presumptive LFA will be essential to fully assess risk of resistance alleles. These results should serve to guide development of improved, spatially limited gene drive design in future applications.