This article traces the development of the state politics subfield within political science. Using three sources of evidence – the publication of state politics articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics; the corpus of articles in State Politics & Policy Quarterly (SPPQ); and the programs of the State Politics and Policy Conference (SPPC) – we examine how the field has developed over the past six decades. We argue that the founding of SPPQ and SPPC helped formalize the subfield. But, as these subfield outlets entered the scene, the proportion of state politics research in leading generalist outlets began to decline even as the number of articles remains relatively constant. Additionally, the substantive focus of the subfield has endured, anchored in topics such as elections, legislatures, and public opinion, even as areas like judicial politics and gender have gained prominence and studies of political parties have declined. Finally, we document the rise of coauthorship in state politics research, reflecting the collaborative nature of the subfield.

Redistricting plays a critical role in structuring the competitive terrain of American elections and shaping the quality of democratic representation. While often viewed as a routine administrative task, the redrawing of electoral boundaries is a deeply political process that can significantly influence who runs for office, who wins, and how voters are represented. This article examines the relationship between redistricting and electoral competition, with a particular focus on how partisan gerrymandering, legal rulings, and institutional reforms have influenced the fairness and integrity of the redistricting process. Tracing its historical roots and evolution, the analysis explores how legislatures, courts, and independent commissions construct district maps and the downstream effects these configurations have on incumbent entrenchment, voter behavior, and partisan polarization. By investigating the trade-offs between fair representation and competitive elections, this article illuminates how institutional design choices shape electoral outcomes and democratic legitimacy. In doing so, it underscores the enduring significance of redistricting as a source of political contestation and reform in the ongoing struggle to strengthen American democracy.

Court-curbing legislation seeks to constrain judicial independence and create a judicial environment that aligns with the preferences of the state legislature. Much of the existing court-curbing literature focuses on court curbing at the national level and state courts of last resort. However, most cases in the United States are decided by lower state courts. This article examines the motivations to curb lower state courts. Our results suggest that as legislative professionalization increases, the legislatures are more likely to introduce legislation that curbs state trial courts. Unlike existing literature on federal courts and state courts of last resort, the ideological distance from the bill sponsor and the state lower courts does not influence court-curbing activity. Our results hold when tested at both the bill and state levels.

Can American state legislators use social media to influence the political behaviors and attitudes of the public by crafting strategic messages? While elected officials from every level of government use social media, it is not clear how the public responds to their individual posts. I argue that the rhetorical strategies employed by legislators can have a direct impact on their online constituencies, moderated by the existence of a copartisan relationship. I test my argument using a simulated social media environment embedded within a traditional survey experiment to mimic the impact of real-life social media posts. I find that legislators’ social media posts influence their approval ratings, and at times, the public’s trust in government. However, I do not find evidence that small numbers of social media posts affect a willingness to participate in politics.

Event history analysis (EHA) revolutionized the study of policy diffusion. However, many diffusion studies are snapshots of a policy’s spread. This begs the question of what we are learning from studies of (often) incomplete diffusion. The simple question that we ask – when should a diffusion study be conducted? – is complex to answer. We offer insight into this question using literature on EHA and empirical observation. We use data from the State Innovation and Policy Diffusion database on 83 policies that were adopted by at least 42 states to demonstrate how key results change as the observation window changes. We conclude with advice on how to approach modeling and interpreting incomplete policy diffusion in the future.

American states continue to experiment with new forms of electoral institutions, including various nonpartisan election systems. One such rule, the “top-two” procedure, allows all voters to choose any candidate in the primary, advancing whichever two candidates obtain the most votes to the general election. These general elections may feature two candidates of the same party. This paper uses data from California, the largest state to adopt this rule, to examine participation and competition in the last five elections before the top-two procedure (2002 to 2010) and the first five after it (2012 to 2020), investigating the potential trade-off between the roll-off and increased competition. We find that while roll-off occurs with copartisan elections, the compensating increases in competition are substantial. Furthermore, with this system, the meaningful competition shifts toward the higher turnout general elections, which calls into question whether there is much of a participatory cost at all. Additionally, we leverage the unusual cases of write-in candidates to illustrate the electoral dynamics of these elections, highlighting the difficulty of implementing accountability with cross-party elections while demonstrating the behavioral potential of copartisan elections.