Lara Putnam
@laraputnam.bsky.social
Historian. Mom. Knocks on doors and talks politics. https://www.history.pitt.edu/people/lara-putnam
Take this fwiw, but the last month of partisan voter registration shifts in Pennsylvania have looked better for Dems than any month in recent memory🤷♀️
November 3, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Take this fwiw, but the last month of partisan voter registration shifts in Pennsylvania have looked better for Dems than any month in recent memory🤷♀️
More reporting on more tragedies created by smartphones with cameras in children's hands www.cbc.ca/news/marketp...
Sextorters are targeting young boys online — and flaunting how rich the scam is making them | CBC News
There's a network of overseas scammers targeting and blackmailing teens, and in some cases driving them to suicide within hours of falling into a trap known as sextortion. CBC's Marketplace created fake social media profiles to investigate the business behind the blackmail.
www.cbc.ca
October 5, 2025 at 12:18 PM
More reporting on more tragedies created by smartphones with cameras in children's hands www.cbc.ca/news/marketp...
Ok, big reveal: Allegheny, Montco, Chester, Delco, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties are the only counties in PA where Kamala Harris improved on Hilary Clinton's net vote totals
I am deep in the weeds, working on a thing, so please join me in being obsessed with this #PAelection fun fact.
What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?
What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?
August 6, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Ok, big reveal: Allegheny, Montco, Chester, Delco, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties are the only counties in PA where Kamala Harris improved on Hilary Clinton's net vote totals
I am deep in the weeds, working on a thing, so please join me in being obsessed with this #PAelection fun fact.
What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?
What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?
August 3, 2025 at 10:38 PM
I am deep in the weeds, working on a thing, so please join me in being obsessed with this #PAelection fun fact.
What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?
What do Allegheny, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Cumberland, Dauphin, Northampton, Lancaster, Erie, Centre, & Montour counties have in common, & in that order?
The is a technical social science term for what @adambonica.bsky.social has laid bare here, and that is "absolutely fcking insane"
Seriously. Read and weep.
Seriously. Read and weep.
The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:
$678M raised through those spam tactics
$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.
$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)
The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.
$678M raised through those spam tactics
$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.
$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)
The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.
The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine
How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.
open.substack.com
August 3, 2025 at 5:17 PM
The is a technical social science term for what @adambonica.bsky.social has laid bare here, and that is "absolutely fcking insane"
Seriously. Read and weep.
Seriously. Read and weep.
I participated in an event about the upcoming judicial races, & two nice people came up afterward & specifically asked me to post more on Bluesky 😅. I live to serve, so here is one quick PA judicial fun fact: In Nov 2021, 70,000 of the people who cast ballots in Philly DECLINED to vote on retentions
July 20, 2025 at 1:01 PM
I participated in an event about the upcoming judicial races, & two nice people came up afterward & specifically asked me to post more on Bluesky 😅. I live to serve, so here is one quick PA judicial fun fact: In Nov 2021, 70,000 of the people who cast ballots in Philly DECLINED to vote on retentions
Working on a new article about online harms to children & intl human rights w/@jenatmartin.bsky.social so I jumped over to Fb to see if there'd been improvement & immediately found these in a 17k public group I reported on months ago with @justinhendrix.bsky.social how's your dystopian morning going
June 27, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Working on a new article about online harms to children & intl human rights w/@jenatmartin.bsky.social so I jumped over to Fb to see if there'd been improvement & immediately found these in a 17k public group I reported on months ago with @justinhendrix.bsky.social how's your dystopian morning going
Always worth reading @antoniascatton.bsky.social for clear eyed guidance about how to map communication to strategic goals
The American public will judge who is right and wrong based almost exclusively on the images they see. We have to be super strategic about stage-managing the optics, both on the ground and in our messaging. #NOKINGS
reframingamerica.substack.com/p/protest-op...
reframingamerica.substack.com/p/protest-op...
Protest Strategy: Managing the Optics
Focus on how this plays to the American audience.
reframingamerica.substack.com
June 13, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Always worth reading @antoniascatton.bsky.social for clear eyed guidance about how to map communication to strategic goals
It's understandably not the SWPA election result getting headlines this week, but: the continued Democratic rise (and stark GOP decline) in Pittsburgh's once rock-ribbed Republican northern suburbs is remarkable
May 22, 2025 at 11:54 AM
It's understandably not the SWPA election result getting headlines this week, but: the continued Democratic rise (and stark GOP decline) in Pittsburgh's once rock-ribbed Republican northern suburbs is remarkable
In honor of tomorrow's election a few charts fr Pittsburgh & surrounds. First, the big picture: there are 31,000 fewer registered Dems in Allegheny County today than 4 ys ago. There are 2,000 more Republicans & 10,000 more Indep/3rd party (who cannot vote in tomorrow's primaries)
May 19, 2025 at 1:36 PM
In honor of tomorrow's election a few charts fr Pittsburgh & surrounds. First, the big picture: there are 31,000 fewer registered Dems in Allegheny County today than 4 ys ago. There are 2,000 more Republicans & 10,000 more Indep/3rd party (who cannot vote in tomorrow's primaries)
I interrupt your regularly scheduled doom about all things Democratic Party to report that Something is Happening in Pennsylvania
May 4, 2025 at 2:04 AM
I interrupt your regularly scheduled doom about all things Democratic Party to report that Something is Happening in Pennsylvania
Meanwhile... worrying about real-world harms to kids from online interactions got me into a long series of conversations with the brilliant @jenatmartin.bsky.social that ended us up here yjolt.org/everything-n...
Everything New is Old Again: The Coming Metaverse, Platforms as Premises, and Addressing Harms that Occur Behind the Veil of Scale
| Yale Journal of Law & Technology
yjolt.org
April 22, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Meanwhile... worrying about real-world harms to kids from online interactions got me into a long series of conversations with the brilliant @jenatmartin.bsky.social that ended us up here yjolt.org/everything-n...
Coming up tonight: Not-very-🔥 takes from me about electoral trends & shifts that shaped 2024 in PA, and what that might mean looking forward www.mobilize.us/promotethevo...
WTF HAPPENED?!? The '24 Election and handling misinformation with Dr. Lara Putnam · Promote the Vote PA
Join us on Monday, April 21 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm ET for WTF HAPPENED?!? with Dr. Lara Putnam, who will discuss the '24 election and how to combat misinformation in 2025.
Dr. Lara Putnam is a Professo...
www.mobilize.us
April 21, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Coming up tonight: Not-very-🔥 takes from me about electoral trends & shifts that shaped 2024 in PA, and what that might mean looking forward www.mobilize.us/promotethevo...
Reposted by Lara Putnam
To Pennsylvanians here: Do you have local school board races next month that you care about and/think are important?
There are literally hundreds of races in May, and hard to keep up. I got some very helpful answers when I asked about Texas yesterday, so I'm switching gears to Pennsylvania!
There are literally hundreds of races in May, and hard to keep up. I got some very helpful answers when I asked about Texas yesterday, so I'm switching gears to Pennsylvania!
April 21, 2025 at 3:09 AM
To Pennsylvanians here: Do you have local school board races next month that you care about and/think are important?
There are literally hundreds of races in May, and hard to keep up. I got some very helpful answers when I asked about Texas yesterday, so I'm switching gears to Pennsylvania!
There are literally hundreds of races in May, and hard to keep up. I got some very helpful answers when I asked about Texas yesterday, so I'm switching gears to Pennsylvania!
Reposted by Lara Putnam
Union County Dems are running 29 candidates for municipal office this year, a 190% increase from 2023.
April 20, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Union County Dems are running 29 candidates for municipal office this year, a 190% increase from 2023.
Another day, another invaluably unvarnished post about public opinion & electoral math from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social .
April 18, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Another day, another invaluably unvarnished post about public opinion & electoral math from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social .
I hear there are folks on here muttering about protests being cringe... or "resistance Libs" likewise (or middle aged women in general maybe?)... so reupping this descriptive piece about how the 2017 protests shaped local social networks & from there, elections washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/12/h...
How Today’s Anti-Trump Protests Will Shape the 2020 Election | Washington Monthly
Opposition to the president has fueled local movements that are strongest exactly where their electoral impact matters most.
washingtonmonthly.com
April 6, 2025 at 6:44 PM
I hear there are folks on here muttering about protests being cringe... or "resistance Libs" likewise (or middle aged women in general maybe?)... so reupping this descriptive piece about how the 2017 protests shaped local social networks & from there, elections washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/12/h...
Hands Off protest this afternoon in Pittsburgh was the largest I have personally attended in Pittsburgh, ever. I posted a bunch of clips over on the Other Site but will share at least a few highlights here?
April 5, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Hands Off protest this afternoon in Pittsburgh was the largest I have personally attended in Pittsburgh, ever. I posted a bunch of clips over on the Other Site but will share at least a few highlights here?
A few weeks/lifetime ago I did an obsessively long thread re the new Bonica et al paper that examines the vote penalty paid by individual candidates for extremism & makes assertions [to my eye, ungrounded ones] about a potential broader turnout boost extremism might bring to the party as a whole.
As @charlotteeffect.bsky.social points out, even before we get to the "correlation is not causation" elephant in the room, there's the problem that the claimed causation is between the 2 variables *not* graphed together. Here's her best guess about what that graph would look like. Any correlation?🤷♀️
March 28, 2025 at 11:49 AM
A few weeks/lifetime ago I did an obsessively long thread re the new Bonica et al paper that examines the vote penalty paid by individual candidates for extremism & makes assertions [to my eye, ungrounded ones] about a potential broader turnout boost extremism might bring to the party as a whole.
I'm going to stake out the apparently-edgy-onhere position that the voter shifts described by David Shor here are real, & should be cause for genuinely difficult rethinking of strategies based on no-longer-accurate assumptions about the 'rising American electorate' www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/o...
Opinion | Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won
The Democratic pollster David Shor walks through what voter data reveals about the 2024 election — and how the American electorate is shifting.
www.nytimes.com
March 21, 2025 at 12:51 PM
I'm going to stake out the apparently-edgy-onhere position that the voter shifts described by David Shor here are real, & should be cause for genuinely difficult rethinking of strategies based on no-longer-accurate assumptions about the 'rising American electorate' www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/o...
I am grateful that anyone at all is following me on here, & assume maybe most are interested in Dem grassroots activism—in which case I am going to reiterate that @charlotteeffect.bsky.social is must-read: including her recent commentary on this 👀 paper cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-specte...
The Specter of “What About Turnout” Haunts The Literature
About that new Bonica et al paper on electoral penalties and moderation
cauldronllc.substack.com
March 16, 2025 at 1:42 PM
I am grateful that anyone at all is following me on here, & assume maybe most are interested in Dem grassroots activism—in which case I am going to reiterate that @charlotteeffect.bsky.social is must-read: including her recent commentary on this 👀 paper cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-specte...
Reposted by Lara Putnam
Really informative article from Lara Putnam in Tech Policy Press detailing how celebrity and TV show fan groups on Facebook are used to solicit and spread sexualized child content across Latin America.
www.techpolicy.press/latin-americ...
www.techpolicy.press/latin-americ...
Latin America’s Children at Risk on Facebook: Predators Stalk Children in Celebrity Fan Groups | TechPolicy.Press
Groups that center around popular celebrities present predators a chance to target children in Spanish language Facebook groups, writes Lara Putnam.
www.techpolicy.press
March 7, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Really informative article from Lara Putnam in Tech Policy Press detailing how celebrity and TV show fan groups on Facebook are used to solicit and spread sexualized child content across Latin America.
www.techpolicy.press/latin-americ...
www.techpolicy.press/latin-americ...
Another must-read post from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social , working really hard to clear away comforting Dem-side narratives (like, "we just needed better GOTV" or "the base stayed home bc Harris ran too far to the right") so that urgent rethinking can begin cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-19-mil...
The 19 million missing voter myth
Why there aren’t a population of untapped ex-Biden voters out there to be reached
cauldronllc.substack.com
March 7, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Another must-read post from @charlotteeffect.bsky.social , working really hard to clear away comforting Dem-side narratives (like, "we just needed better GOTV" or "the base stayed home bc Harris ran too far to the right") so that urgent rethinking can begin cauldronllc.substack.com/p/the-19-mil...
Possibly you did not have "Democratic Women of Fayette County’s monthly meeting breaks records with 98 enthusiastic attendees" on your Winter 2025 bingo card?
Nor Democratic Women of [Trump+ 38] Fayette County becomes THE largest Democratic Federated Club in Pennsylvania 🤷♀️
Nor Democratic Women of [Trump+ 38] Fayette County becomes THE largest Democratic Federated Club in Pennsylvania 🤷♀️
March 6, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Possibly you did not have "Democratic Women of Fayette County’s monthly meeting breaks records with 98 enthusiastic attendees" on your Winter 2025 bingo card?
Nor Democratic Women of [Trump+ 38] Fayette County becomes THE largest Democratic Federated Club in Pennsylvania 🤷♀️
Nor Democratic Women of [Trump+ 38] Fayette County becomes THE largest Democratic Federated Club in Pennsylvania 🤷♀️
This from @adamjentleson.bsky.social is very good & also points to an ancillary takeaway: leaders (elected or otherwise) who have a clear-eyed vision of what terrain they want Dems to be fighting on... need to step forward & create hands-on opportunities to channel energy towards *those* fights
March 4, 2025 at 11:20 PM
This from @adamjentleson.bsky.social is very good & also points to an ancillary takeaway: leaders (elected or otherwise) who have a clear-eyed vision of what terrain they want Dems to be fighting on... need to step forward & create hands-on opportunities to channel energy towards *those* fights