Peer Reviewed Publications 

McLaughlin, Peter, Charles Finocchiaro, and Michael Crespin. 2024. “Strategic States: The Congressional Roots of Federal Grant Applications.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly

While a large body of research explores the federal-level influences over distributive politics decisions, very little attention has been given to the active role state and local governments play in the geographic distribution of federal funds. Before presidents, legislators, and agency leaders can influence the selection of federal grants, state and local governments must expend time and resources to submit grant proposals. We focus on grant applications as our unit of analysis and advance a theory that congressional representation influences the grant application behavior of state and local governments. We analyze US Department of Transportation grant applications and awards from 2009 to 2022 and find evidence that congressional representation meaningfully influences state-level grant application behavior. States apply more aggressively for federal transportation grants when represented by senators in the Senate majority party, and states apply more efficiently for grants when represented by a senator holding an advantageous committee leadership post.

McLaughlin, Peter, Peter Olson, Nathan Barron, Bennie Ashton, Rachel Blum, Charles Finocchiaro, and Michael Crespin. 2024. “Ends Versus Means: Public Opinion on Congressional Redistricting.” Election Law Journal

State-level redistricting processes shape congressional elections and representation, and recent reform efforts have propelled congressional redistricting procedures into mainstream political discussion. We ask whether citizens’ satisfaction with redistricting in their state is shaped by ends (election results) or by means (type of redistricting process). Leveraging questions on the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, state-level variation in redistricting processes, and 2022 election outcomes, we find that both ends and means shape the public’s satisfaction with redistricting in their state. Among respondents who correctly identified their state’s redistricting process for the 2022 midterm elections, those living in a state with a redistricting commission reported greater support for redistricting than those living in a state with legislature-controlled redistricting. We also find that respondents who are represented by a copartisan in the U.S. House are more supportive of their state’s congressional redistricting process than both respondents who identify as independent and respondents who are represented by an opposing party legislator. Successful electoral reforms require public buy-in, and our results suggest that partisan power considerations and a lack of public knowledge about congressional redistricting present barriers to reforming state-level redistricting processes.

McLaughlin, Peter. 2023. “Institutional Earmarks: The Earmark Moratorium and Federal Highway Spending” Journal of Public Policy

In 2010, the United States Congress placed a moratorium on earmarks – congressionally mandated spending projects. But did the earmark moratorium actually rid public policy of earmarks? I use earmark data and 2010–2020 state-level highway funding metrics to examine the relationship between previously expired transportation earmarks and federal highway funding during the earmark moratorium. Earmarks in the 2005 surface transportation law (SAFETEA-LU) continued to benefit certain states in 2020, even though the projects technically expired in 2009. This is because the funding “formulas” established by all post-2009 surface transportation laws were fully determined by the highway allocation percentage each state received in the preceding year, inclusive of earmarks. Further, I find the relationship between SAFETEA-LU earmarks and state funding disparities strengthened from 2010 to 2020, meaning the expired earmarks increased in policy significance during the moratorium. Highly earmarked states became even more advantaged after the earmarks were institutionalised into the highway funding formula.

McLaughlin, Peter. 2023. “More Money, Less Credit? Legislator Gender and the Effectiveness of Congressional Credit Claiming ” Politics & Gender 

Bringing home federal spending projects to the district is a common reelection strategy for members of the U.S. Congress, and congresswomen tend to outperform congressmen in securing district spending. However, for legislators to turn distributive benefits into higher approval and electoral rewards, constituents must recognize that public spending has taken place in their community and attribute credit to the correct public official. I theorize that congresswomen face a gender bias when claiming credit for federal projects, and I test this theory through an online survey experiment. Contrary to expectations, I find no evidence that legislator gender influences the public’s reaction to congressional credit claims, indicating that congresswomen can effectively use distributive politics to counter gendered vulnerability in the U.S. Congress. This research advances the literature on gender and politics by investigating whether a gender bias in credit claiming prevents congresswomen from turning their representational efforts into electoral capital. 

Barron, Nathan and Peter McLaughlin . 2023. “Experimental Evidence of the Benefits and Risks of Credit Claiming and Pork Busting” Legislative Studies Quarterly

As appropriations earmarks return to Congress, every legislator faces a decision:  pursue  or  refuse  congressionally  mandated  federal  spending  projects.  this  decision  is  likely  influenced  by  public  messaging  concerns.  We  theorize  that  both  credit  claiming  for  federal  projects  and  position  taking  against  spending  projects  (“pork  busting”)  can  benefit  legislators  as  they  look  to  improve  future  electoral  returns. We field a nationally representative survey experiment to estimate the effect  of   credit claiming  and  pork busting  messages  on  the  perceived  effectiveness,  fiscal  responsibility,  and  overall  approval  of   an  unnamed  member  of   Congress.  We find that respondents are likely to penalize the representative’s approval assessment when presented with an out-party message strategy. Conversely, respondents are likely to increase the representative’s personal trait assessments when presented with  an  in-party  message  strategy.  We  expand  on  these  results  in  an  additional  analysis and find that these trends persist when controlling for other partisan and demographic  factors.  We  discuss  our  results  in  light  of   traditional  expectations,  potential mechanisms, and future directions for related research.

McLaughlin, Peter, Matthew Geras, and Sarina Rhinehart. 2022. “Supporting Veterans: Source Cues, Issue Ownership, and the Electoral Benefits of Military Service.” Political Behavior

Conventional wisdom has long assumed veteran status to be a beneficial credential for political candidates, but the evidence is mixed on the direct association between military experience and electoral success. Rather than a uniformly advantageous candidate characteristic, we argue veteran status is best understood as an influential source cue and issue ownership factor that can be capitalized on by effective campaign messaging. We outline three potential mechanisms through which veteran candidates unlock electoral gains – solidified issue ownership, enhanced trait ownership, and increased salience of advantageous policy issues. We test these expectations with two online survey experiments, randomizing a fictional candidate’s veteran status and the policy topic discussed in campaign messaging. We find veteran candidates can use a combination of veteran cues and policy messaging to gain an advantage over nonveterans. However, veteran candidates stand to benefit most by talking about crime rather than national defense, as a ceiling effect limits veterans’ ability to enhance their service-related issue and trait ownership ratings by messaging on national defense. By reconceptualizing military service as an effective communication tool rather than a uniformly advantageous biographical line, we clarify the substantial electoral value of veteran status in American politics. More broadly, our findings show that voters respond not just to individual cues derived from partisanship or a candidate’s background, but to the interaction of these cues with campaign messaging.

McLaughlin, Peter and Sarina Rhinehart. 2022. “Paying for Child Care on the Campaign Trail: Attitudes Toward the Use of Campaign Finances for Personal Expenses.” Politics, Groups, and Identities

The US Congress is unrepresentative of the people it serves, and reforming campaign finance law may be a path toward a more representative institution. We examine public opinion toward allowing candidates to use campaign funds for child care, theorizing gender conditions support due to the unequal burden child care places on women. Using an experiment, we find people are more supportive of candidates using campaign funds for child care when the hypothetical candidates are women. Women respondents are especially likely to vary their support for the policy based on candidate gender. This project is the first to explore public support for allowing candidates to use campaign funds for personal expenses, contributing to our understanding of support for reform that could transform the types of candidates willing to run.