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AbstractDespite being responsible for a large percentage of undergraduate instruction, graduate students often receive little preparation for their first solo teaching assignments (J. D. Nyquist et al., Change 31 (3): 18, 1999). Furthermore, the existing literature on pedagogy fails to address the unique challenges faced by graduate students who are asked to serve as course instructors rather than teaching assistants. This article presents seven pieces of advice intended to better prepare the predoctoral graduate student to assume the role of the professor before assuming the title. By understanding the attitudes of undergraduate students toward graduate instructors, preparing in advance to handle the mistakes that novice teachers often make, and recognizing the correlation between outward confidence and student perceptions of instructor quality, graduate students can derive the most benefit from a stressful and time-consuming assignment. Most important, graduate instructors can learn to effectively manage the time spent on teaching duties to ensure that other responsibilities such as coursework, qualifying exams, and dissertation research do not suffer.

The combined effects of an aging population, domestic migration, and the geographically heterogeneous effects of foreign immigration are producing politically significant changes in the distribution of the American population. Using statistical projections of state populations in the 2010 and 2020 US Censuses combined with statewide estimates of the normal vote based on the last five presidential elections (1992–2008), I show that by 2024 Republican presidential candidates will receive a net benefit of at least eight electoral votes due to the declining population of the Northeast and upper Midwest relative to the rapidly-growing Sun Belt. Democratic presidential candidates will find it increasingly difficult to win elections without having some success in the South and Southwest as Barack Obama did in 2008 but many previous candidates failed to do. While migration will also benefit some solid Democratic states such as California, on balance Republican presidential candidates are poised to benefit from the status of Sun Belt states as magnets for both foreign immigration and domestic migration from a retirement cohort of unprecedented size.

What if everyone voted? There is consensus that increased turnout generally, but not always, benefits Democrats, but recent evidence suggests that it is unlikely to change election outcomes considering the paucity of close races. For the first time, we examine this question using gubernatorial races along with Senate races from 2008 and 2010, estimating the behavior of nonvoters based on individual‐level data from known voters. We find that the substantive effect of full turnout is understated, particularly in close gubernatorial races. As these races determine partisan control of executive branches, we demonstrate that full turnout would result in more politically meaningful changes than suggested in previous research focusing only on Senate or presidential elections. While the empirical consequences of increased turnout are well understood, our findings suggest that the substantive effects continue to be understated.Related Articles

Stockemer, Daniel, and
Stephanie Parent. 2014. "." Politics & Policy 42 (): 221‐245. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12067/abstract


Southwell, Priscilla. 2011. "." Politics & Policy 39 (): 979‐996. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00330.x/abstract


Stockemer, Daniel. 2013. "." Politics & Policy 41 (): 189‐212. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12012/abstract

"The 'Palin Effect' in the U.S. 2008 Presidential Election" analyzes the effect of Sarah Palin on presidential vote choice. Two of the substantive conclusions are (1) Palin cost McCain votes among independents and moderates, and (2) Palin had the largest effect on vote choice of any recent vice-presidential nominee. Our analysis shows that the data do not support these findings. We find that respondent evaluations of Palin have a positive effect on McCain vote choice, even among independents and moderates, and Palin's effect on the election outcome is comparable with ten of the last fifteen vice-presidential nominees.