When one political party gains control of American national governing institutions, it increases the prospects of enacting its policy agenda. Faced with this partisan misalignment, the authors expect state governments controlled by the national out-party to respond to the national partisan context with more state policy activism. The study examines changes in state policy liberalism from 1974 to 2019, and finds that both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states have pushed policy further in their preferred ideological directions when the opposing party has greater partisan control over the national policy agenda in Washington. It also identifies differences between the two parties. While the effect of Republican control modestly increases as Democrats gain power at the national level, Democratic-controlled states have shown dramatically larger shifts in policy liberalism during periods of Republican national control. This arrangement, however, appears to be a contemporary one, emerging in the more polarized political environment since the mid-1990s.
Though 2017 saw historic levels of political activism in the form of anti-Trump protests, it remains to be seen whether these demonstrations actually led lawmakers to harden their resistance to President Donald Trump's agenda. Coupling state-level protest data, Senate voting records, and a collection of senators' tweets from 2017, I find that anti-Trump protests led to heightened opposition to the president in the U.S. Senate, though largely along party lines. Senate Democrats representing states that saw more intense Women's March demonstrations were more likely to oppose the president's legislative agenda, particularly on nominations votes. Moreover, the frequency of anti-Trump demonstrations back home increased the likelihood that Democratic senators issued tweets critical of President Trump. Senate Republicans, however, were unresponsive to anti-Trump protests, both in the chamber and on Twitter.
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