Tufts Public Opinion Lab
The Tufts Public Opinion Lab (TPOL) is dedicated to studying contemporary controversies in American public opinion using quantitative data analysis. Lab members have won national awards for their research and published in some of the discipline’s top journals.
Public Opinion Lab Blog
The blog is the public-facing outlet for lab research.
Read the Tufts Public Opinion Lab Blog →
Joining the Lab
If you are a Tufts student interested in joining the lab, please email me directly. To be eligible to join, students must have completed PS 103 (Political Science Research Methods).
Peer-Reviewed Publications by Lab Members
- Schaffner, Brian F., Thomas Hershewe, Zoe Kava, and Jael Strell. 2025. “Do Conservatives Really Have Better Mental Well-Being than Liberals?” PLOS ONE.
- Hershewe, Thomas, and Asher Smith. 2025. “When Politics Override Place: How Political Affiliation Supersedes Rural Identity.” American Politics Research.
- Blatte, Scott, Danielle Piccoli, and Matthew Zachem. 2024. “The Causal Effects of a Trump Endorsement on Voter Preferences in a General Election Scenario.” PS: Political Science & Politics 57(3): 340–345.
- Deshpande, Pia, Scott Blatte, Yonatan Margalit, Carolina Olea Lezama, Brian F. Schaffner, Aadhya Shivakumar, and David Wingens. 2024. “Critical Race Theory and Asymmetric Mobilization.” Political Behavior 46: 1677–1699.
- Hartnett, Brendan, and Alexandra Haver. 2022. “Unconditional Support for Trump’s Resistance Prior to Election Day.” PS: Political Science & Politics 55(4): 661–667.
Award-Winning Research
Students from the lab have won the Best Student Paper Award from the New England Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research on four separate occasions.
- 2025 — Kyle Krell, “Silent Identities: The Dynamics and Impacts of ‘Not Sure’ Responses to Non-Policy Questions”
- 2023 — Thomas Hershewe and Asher Smith, “Stacked or Subordinate? Exploring the Relationship between Rural and Partisan Identities”
- 2021 (shared) — Brendan Hartnett and Aly Haver, “Impact of Popular Vote Margins on Accepting 2020 Presidential Election Results”
- 2021 (shared) — Lucas Pyle and Ryan Shaffer, “Combatting Partisanship in Measures of Issue Salience: A Novel Approach”