Len Metson

Brazil's election was decided in the densely populated south and north east

So how did Lula come from behind to defeat Bolsonaro? In short, turnout. Bolsonaro's vote share barely moved. But Lula banked millions of votes from those who didn't vote in the first round & won eliminated candidates' votes. A remarkable mobilisation. Second round turnout is usually below first.

Phew 🥹 🇧🇷

Coastal cities swing left, sparsely populated interior swings right

BREAKING Brazil's Lula clinches victory over Bolsonaro to win fourth term: official results show

I've had a great time exploring Berlin so far, where I'll be based until the end of Jan, visiting @dynamics.bsky.social Please reach out if you're around and fancy a coffee and/or have any tips for whilst I'm here ☕

This year marks the centennial of R.A. Fisher's 1926 paper "The Arrangement of Field Experiments," presumably a key reason why p<.05 criteria and 95% confidence intervals have—for better or worse—been conventional for 100 years.

I'm hiring a research assistant (~pre-doc) to work with me on a range of projects about digitalisation and political behaviour in Africa. The position is open to full or part time, with options for remote working. Deadline 12th Nov. Any questions please get in touch! bss.au.dk/en/about-aar...

I worry that Labour are making a trap for themselves on electoral reform 1) SV *is not* a form of PR. So would do nothing to account for our fragmenting politics 2) Opting for SV would just rehash the referendum on AV, which reformers overwhelmingly lost www.politico.eu/article/andy...

Super excited to see this labour of love out in the Journal of Political Economy! 🤩 I find that getting neighbours to talk to each other about hiring a transgender worker can on its own drastically reduce discrimination in urban India www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

📢 CALL FOR PAPERS! We invite submissions for the Political Methodology Seminar Series on frontiers in empirical political science and CSS. We welcome research examining political behaviour, public opinion, comparative politics, and CSS. Research on adjacent topics are also highly encouraged.

Very excited to announce a new Political Methodology Seminar Series co-hosted by the @lsegovernment.bsky.social, @lsemethodology.bsky.social and European Institute. This bi-weekly series is designed to support ECRs applying state-of-the-art methodological tools to political science research.

Side note: This is not only another very bad result for the CDU, but for the centre-right in general. The FDP doesn't even factor anymore. 1% in MV and likely no more than 2-3% in Berlin. Looks like the populist rebirth of the Free Democrats isn't quite going to plan.

Excited to present some new(ish) data tomorrow on the Campaign Strategy, Persuasion and Mobilisation panel (11:30-13:00) at EPOP! #EPOP2026

Where did the bounce come from? Progressives returning to Labour 🌹 63% of 2024 Labour voters now say they'd vote Labour, up from 50% in June Labour's losses to the Greens (14%→10%) and Lib Dems (13%→7%) have fallen sharply since Burnham took over

That doesn't make RCTs "bad" but we could probably rethink how we interpret them with standard estimands. The ATE may not be all that important!

PM resignation watch followed by a heat health alert is peak UK news cycle

One thing I think the focus on block politics underplays are the (small) voters who 'least liked' party are in their 'block'.

Cannot recommend this documentary enough ! www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

This was the 2024 result in Makerfield, where Josh Simons is standing down to allow Andy Burnham to return to Parliament. It's going to be really, really tough for Burnham to win it.

This whole by-election will now be about the future PM. Have we ever seen a by-election like it?! It will change the calculations, divert so many resources there, make the choice high stakes. Maybe even a slam dunk result that shows Reform's vulnerabilities. A killer move, if so, for Burnham.

One of the largest drops in nhs waiting lists on record, which no one will now hear about. Opportunity cost from all the leadership turmoil www.england.nhs.uk/2026/05/heal...

The local elections in one chart. Labour has been squeezed between the Greens in young wards and Reform in older working-class wards www.economist.com/britain/2026...

Nationally, this suggests Labour vote disproportionately stayed at home or went to another left party. Massive collapse to Plaid in Wales. Reform turned out an energised base with some switchers on top. Greens also. Lab->Reform exists but not the major part of the picture.

Does anyone know of (/have) individual-level data on "split ballot" voting (i.e. voting for candidates from different parties) in English local elections?

🧵/ Let's put Labour's local election results into perspective... They lost 58% of the seats they were defending, the 10th worst performance for any party in the last sixty years and the 5th worst for a govt. This compares to the Tories losing 48-53% in the locals prior to their landslide defeats.

This crossed my mind a lot when looking at the locals in 2025, where the raw votes in many wards suggested either significant switching from left to right, or Reform gaining non-voters and Labour voters staying home. The individual-level data then showed that intra-bloc switching was low... 1/2

Ahead of the local elections, here's an easy guide of how best to assess the results as they come in, including the best metrics to use and some historical benchmarks. It's on the longer side, but is split into sections and filled with lots of (hopefully) useful data, and completely free-to-read.

British politics is resembling the rest of Europe: • Multi-party competition has replaced two-party dominance • Challengers are on the rise, esp. the populist right • Political realignment centres on identity politics (incl Brexit) But FPTP is poorly suited to this fragmentation

This but "ecological fallacy"

www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

Really helpful framework for thinking about the utility of survey experiments for practitioners by @benmtappin.bsky.social 👇 www.benmtappin.com/publication/...

🧵1/ Our first meta-science paper (with 350+ coauthors) is published today in Nature. It presents one of the largest-ever reproducibility projects in economics & political science. Here’s what we found 👇

Not interested 😂

2-3 on aggregate 4-1 on the posts #CHEARS #UWCL

Delighted our paper (with an amazing group of co-authors) is forthcoming in the APSR Takeaway for Labour and other centre-left parties: fixing public services is key to reducing support for the populist right 👇

📄Published Today in Nature: 500 researchers reproduced 100 studies across the social & behavioral sciences to assess their analytical robustness (led by @balazsaczel.bsky.social & @szaszibarnabas.bsky.social). Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Preprint: osf.io/preprints/me... TLDR: 1/11

🚨 New POAL brief from @victoraraujo.bsky.social & @miriamsorace.bsky.social out now: how to properly evaluate the causal impact of shocks, debates, and political crises on public opinion. Diagnostics, pitfalls, examples … all in three pages! Read here: www.poal.co.uk/POAL_brief_U...

AJPS article from @kenbenoit.bsky.social, Scott de Marchi, Conor Laver, Michael Laver, and Jinshuai Ma on using LLMs to analyse political texts. 🧵 1/8 Social science research requires reliable extraction of information from texts to identify authors' preferences on various policies and issues.

Turns out sorting below the threshold is quite hard

HOPE not hate stands in solidarity with Jewish communities in Golders Green and around the country after last night's arson attack.