Paul Gronke
pgronke.bsky.social
Paul Gronke
@pgronke.bsky.social

Professor, director, gardener, and a few other things. I mainly do elections.

Follow my work at HTTP://EVIC.reed.edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-gronke-83452311/

Political science 46%
Economics 14%

I loved the analysis of the impact of free buses -- what they really need to do is make bus lanes!

I'm encouraged that he seemed to understand he has to get along with Albany. A bit disappointed in some of the tone of the speech, but heck, he was excited. Give him that.

Understand the need to fill space, a reminder that Harris won 68% of the vote in NYC. There were also three deeply flawed contenders.

Not underplaying the amazing Mamdani campaign and his talents, but IMO this is a lot more about campaigning (and shitty opponents) than ideology.

Time will tell.

I dig the excitement he is generating and that he's saying different things. But NYC is incredibly difficult to govern and I hope he ends up figuring out how to navigate that and doesn't end up being constantly frustrated.

We shall see. I don't interpret a lot from a result in NYC.

You look only to the parents but not to the differences in their ages which seems to me quite important in this case.

Also: Columbia vs Chicago.

Not sure what to do with San Francisco but who is?
Here is Gregory Bovino, the man in charge of ICE agents in Chicago.

This to me is the central challenge. With 40 years of statistical programming under my belt — all the way back to APL and Fortran — I can fashion highly focused queries and evaluate the results.

Not sure what I’d do if I were teaching stats.

This has not been my experience, not by a long shot.

I find the LLMs produce workable code for most of my low level needs, dramatically reduce my search time for more complex tasks, and have helped complete tasks that otherwise would be beyond my capabilities.

Why would you want to give free college tuition to a rich family? That’s a silly proposal.
The Oregon Republican Party tried to help Donald Trump make the case for military intervention in Portland with an image of a fiery protest — but since Portland is calm, they had to fabricate one by merging old photos of police in Ecuador and protesters in Brazil www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Republicans post fake image of Oregon protest – using photos of South America
A federal judge had blocked Trump’s request to deploy California national guard to Portland
www.theguardian.com
I am proud of MIT, where our branch of AAUP has voted unanimously to endorse this statement urging MIT leadership and the MIT Corporation to reject the Compact wholesale
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Letter Regarding Compact
MIT Chapter of the American Association of University Professors October 6, 2025 Statement on the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” MIT has been invited by the federal governmen...
docs.google.com
My new op-ed with @lkfazio.bsky.social:

Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain.
Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

4/ I may be missing something, but confirmed my sense with @electionstudies.bsky.social .

Nothing statistically incorrect in the book -- that's important to note. I was just surprised to see that fairly elaborate weight adjustment suggested right up front. for use of the ANES.

3/ .. in the book and post

"If we want to make inferences about the entire U.S. population, we need to adjust the weights."

I don't think that's correct. You can make inferences about the population percentage who voted, for instance, just not the population NUMBER.

2/ Using the weights provided with the ANES without the extra process the post describes does allow inference to the sample population -- as long as by this we mean statistical quantities and not population or subgroup N's.

I was surprised to see the CPS process at the start, and a statement ...2/

@ivelasq3.bsky.social The new book on survey weighting in R is amazing but you may want to reconsider the first section on weighting the ANES (summarized at this post www.r-bloggers.com/2025/08/anes...)

I don't think many end users produce "population size" estimates, as the book describes. 1/
ANES 2024 is Out! How to Analyze the Data with R | R-bloggers
Last fall, my co-authors Stephanie Zimmer, Rebecca Powell, and I released Exploring Complex Survey Data Analysis Using R. Earlier this August, we had the joy of teaching a workshop based on the book a...
www.r-bloggers.com

Not as in depth as you of course, but I have found that the hallucination rate has gone WAY down in the past 12-18 months. I almost never get fake packages / commands any more.

Reposted by Paul Gronke

A glimpse into Trump's make-believe world of "giant water valves" in Northern California…
JD Vance is suddenly opposed to gerrymandering. Someone tell Greg Abbott.

Reposted by Paul Gronke

BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows President Donald Trump to excavate from Antarctic ice an extraterrestrial life-form, colloquially known as “The Thing,” that assimilates, then imitates, other organisms en route to planetary conquest. The liberals dissent.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows President Donald Trump to remove three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission despite an ongoing legal battle over his authority to fire them without cause. The liberals dissent.
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...
The Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” has cast very different shadows depending on which party holds the White House.

When lower courts blocked Trump admin policies, SCOTUS intervened on an emergency basis to lift those orders in 77% of cases.

For the Biden administration, that number was 0%.
📣 Mark your calendars: The first-ever EPSS Conference will be held in Belfast, 18–20 June 2026

Organized under our new not-for-profit model.

➡️ epssnet.org/belfast-2026/

More details soon, so watch this space.

See you all in Belfast! 🇬🇧☘️
Belfast 2026 – EPSS
© 2025 – European Political Science CIC
epssnet.org

Reposted by Paul Gronke

In the newser this week, a look at the declining job satisfaction among local election administrators, esp in small jurisdictions. That, plus so much more election news and info (and an Emmy winner!): electionline.org/electionline...
electionline Weekly - electionline
electionline.org

Looks like mine is much older - mid 1970s. "Super Deluxe" brand. Yours is a relative youth!

This decision to reverse an earlier decision that threw out a grants package is ultimately a good news story.

Learning when to lead and when to defer isn't easy. Glad to see the 7 members were willing to admit their error.

Now let's see if the lesson sticks.

www.wweek.com/news/city/20...
Amid Outcry, City Council Restores Portland Children’s Levy Grants Package
Close to ten BIPOC executive directors of nonprofit organizations testified to the council, railing them for rejecting the funding recommendations.
www.wweek.com

That's so funny. I looked up the manufacturer. They dominated the desk fan market for something like 30 years.

For my office, it's really important because it's in a renovated house with 1920s duct work. The AC doesn't get pushed at all, but the fan makes it work.

And it looks really cool!

Reposted by Paul Gronke

NYC just used #RankedChoiceVoting in its city primaries.

FairVote CEO Meredith Sumpter explains how RCV delivered more choice, more competition, and better campaigns for NYC voters. 👀

I read Wikipedia now I have heard of both of them! 🤫

He was acting Mayor!

POTUS and administration claims about the results of the bombing were nearly a complete fabrication / fantasy/ wishful thinking?

I’m shocked!

Reposted by Paul Gronke

Every time I hear about the dangers of electing inexperienced people to be a NYC mayor, I think about how Vincent Impellitteri, an absolute nobody, became acting mayor, lost the primary and then won running as the “Experience Party” candidate:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent...
Vincent R. Impellitteri - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org