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Department of Political Science

Joshua D. Clinton

Professor
Abby and Jon Winkelried Chair
Co-Director, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions   Executive Board Member, Data Science Institute

Josh Clinton (Ph.D. Political Science, M.S. Statistics, and M.A. Economics from Stanford University) is the Abby and Jon Winkelried Chair and Professor of Political Science, the Co-Director of the Vanderbilt Poll, a Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Vanderbilt, a member of the Executive Committee for the Data Science Institute at Vanderbilt, the former Editor-in-Chief of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and an Emmy-nominated Senior Election Analyst for NBC News where he is responsible for making election night projections. He was also the Chair of the Task Force on Pre-Election Polling in the 2020 Election for the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and a member of the 2016 AAPOR Task Force.  Among his many academic interests, he uses probability and non-probability based polling to examine substantive questions related to public opinion and politics, polarization, campaigns and elections, and the uses and abuses of statistical methods for understanding political phenomena.  His more than 40 peer-reviewed publications have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and the Annual Review of Political Science.He received graduate degrees in Political Science, Statistics, and Economics from Stanford University in Stanford, CA after graduating from the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY.

Representative publications

  • 2020. "Partisan Pandemic: How Partisanship and Public Health Concerns Affect Individuals' Social Mobility During COVID-19." AAAS/Science Advances. With Jon Cohen, John S. Lapinski, Marc Trussler. 
  • 2020. "Market Matters: The Effect of Big-City News on Rural America During the COVID-19 Pandemic." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. With Eunji Kim and Michael E. Shepherd.
  • 2020. "Policy Effects, Partisanship, and Elections: How Medicaid Expansion Affected Opinions of the Affordable Care Act." Journal of Politics. With Michael W. Sances. 
  • 2020. "Polling Place Changes and Political Participation: Evidence from North Carolina Presidential Elections, 2008-2016." Political Science Research & Methods. With Adriane Fresh, Nick Eubank, and Michael E. Shepherd.
  • 2018. "The Politics of Policy: The Initial Mass Political Effects of Medicaid Expansion in the States." American Political Science Review. With Michael W. Sances.
  • View Curriculum Vitae