Recent accounts of American politics focus heavily on urban–rural gaps in political behavior. Rural politics research is growing but may be stymied by difficulties defining and measuring which Americans qualify as “rural.” We discuss theoretical and empirical challenges to studying rurality. Much existing research has been inattentive to conceptualization and measurement of rural geography. We focus on improving estimation of different notions of rurality and provide a new dataset on urban–rural measurement of U.S. state legislative districts. We scrutinize construct validity and measurement in two studies of rural politics. First, we replicate Flavin and Franko (2020, Political Behavior, 845–864) to demonstrate empirical results may be sensitive to measurement of rural residents. Second, we use Mummolo and Nall’s (2017, The Journal of Politics, 45–59) survey data to show rural self-identification is not well-captured with objective, place-based classifications, suggesting a rethinking of theoretical and empirical accounts of rural identity. We conclude with strategies for operationalizing rurality using readily available tools.

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is interested in scholarly teaching and uses active learning techniques to help students achieve expert-like level of thinking. She guides students in bridging the gap between facts and usable knowledge to solve complex engineering problems.

Scholars are divided on whether increased group size helps or hurts political minorities. We test the concept of “critical mass” using a different kind of long-time minority: pre-realignment Republicans in the American South. In Arkansas, after a century of token status, the minority party doubled its numbers in the late 1990s, held steady through the 2000s, then surged to a super majority. This stair-stepped transformation opened a unique window to address a question thus far examined only cross-sectionally: is an outgroup’s influence enhanced by an increase in numbers or does success become less likely as the majority reacts to a growing threat? We find support for the latter. As the minority expands, the likelihood their bills will be adopted, relative to majority bills, decreases markedly. The widened deficit is not, however, the consequence of diminished Republican success, but rather of a Democratic surge.

How does the public react to information about the likely progression of COVID‐19 cases in the United States? How do these reactions vary over the course of the pandemic and by partisanship, and with what consequences for policy attitudes and personal behavior? We argue that reading projections about the peak of COVID‐19 cases in the United States is likely to lead to increased levels of anxiety and sadness. We expect that these effects will be more pronounced and less polarized along partisan lines earlier in the pandemic. Finally, we expect that elevated anxiety and sadness should in turn lead to greater support for protective policies to combat the pandemic and a greater inclination to engage in protective behaviors. To test these arguments, we fielded online survey experiments at three points in time (April, June, and August 2020), in which respondents were randomly assigned to a control group or one of two projections about the likely progression of COVID‐19 cases in the United States. Across all three waves, we find that exposure to information about case peaks increases anxiety and sadness, though the effects get weaker over time, particularly among Republicans. We also find evidence that these elevated emotional responses increase support for protective policies and behavior.