About

Cassidy Reller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida, with a forthcoming appointment at the College of the Holy Cross starting in Fall 2026. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego, in June 2023, and holds a BA in Government and Law and Philosophy from Lafayette College, as well as an MA in Political Science from UC San Diego. Her research and teaching interests focus on American political institutions, including political parties, legislative politics, state politics, electoral rules, immigration, and methods. Her dissertation demonstrates that minor parties in the United States leverage electoral threats against major parties to secure ideological concessions from the Democratic and Republican Parties. Her scholarly work has been published in outlets such as Electoral Studies, The Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, and Publius. Originally from Fremont, Nebraska, Cassidy Reller enjoys outdoor activities like hiking, backcountry camping, and kayaking in her free time. She is also a dedicated fan of the Minnesota Vikings and Twins.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Social psychology
• Political economy
• Psychology
• Economics
• Computer Science
• Geography
• Positive economics
• Demographic economics

Selected publications

• Do Symbolic Laws Produce Feedback Effects? The Impact of Second Amendment Sanctuaries on Voter Turnout

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Minor Party Major Change: Democratic Environmental Re‐Prioritization in Response to Green Party Competition

  Legislative Studies Quarterly · 2025-05-13

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT How does the emergence of new political competition alter established party behavior? In this article, I analyze how major parties in the United States adjust their agendas in response to new third‐party competition. By analyzing state party platforms using text as data, I show that the emergence of Green Party competition prompts a re‐prioritization of environmental issues within the Democratic platform. Unlike previous literature in the United States focused on adaptation in issue positions or ideology, I demonstrate that adaptation occurs in the salience an issue is given. This happens when a third party strategically contests close elections; the ideologically similar major party will re‐focus on the new third party's policy priorities. This article highlights the role that third parties play in shaping the agendas of major parties, underscores the continued importance of party adaptation in maintaining the two‐party system in American politics, and illustrates the influence that electorally marginalized interests can exert on major parties.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Partisanship or White Protectionism? The Emergence of the Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The Emergence of the Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement: Partisan Federalism, Not White Protectionism

  Publius The Journal of Federalism · 2024 · 2 citations

  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  Abstract One-third of all US counties have enacted Second Amendment Sanctuary (2AS) ordinances, preventing the enforcement of state and federal gun control laws. We test two theories to explain 2AS enactment. First, 2AS may be a manifestation of partisan federalism. This perspective predicts that the nationalization of policy issues has led partisan groups to support “sanctuary” policies in friendly jurisdictions to frustrate the opposition. Second, given the close link between gun policy preferences and racial identities, 2AS enactment may be related to racial dynamics and especially the declining political power of White Americans. Thus, we should expect that 2AS adoptions will occur in majority White counties with declining White populations. We leverage a unique dataset of county-level 2AS enactments to test these hypotheses. We find strong evidence for the partisan federalism hypothesis. In contrast, we find weak and inconsistent evidence for the racial threat hypothesis.

  PublisherDOI

• How ballot access laws increase primary competition and decrease party unity

  Party Politics · 2023-09-26 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  How do electoral institutions affect primary competition and legislative behavior? This paper examines the understudied electoral rule known as ballot access laws, advancing the novel theory that denying ballot access to minor candidates forces these outsiders into major parties. I find that in American states that adopt high ballot access thresholds experience higher rates of ideological heterogeneity and primary competition, and those that reduce their thresholds experience a reduction in heterogeneity and competition. Using an original dataset on state-level changes to ballot access thresholds from 1990 to 2018, I find that an increase in the number and types of primary competition leads to an increase in heterogeneity within both party caucuses. This paper adds to the literature on legislative behavior and electoral institutions, demonstrating institutions' role in shaping electoral competition and the ideology of those represented in office.

  PublisherDOI

• Are elite cues necessary to drive the “Winner Effect” on trust in elections?

  Electoral Studies · 2022 · 16 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Political economy

  A rigorous literature analyzing elections in the United States, in established European democracies, and in the newer democracies of Eastern Europe and Latin America have shown that voters on the losing side of a campaign exhibit less trust in elections and faith in democratic legitimacy. Those who experience the “winner effect,” by contrast, report greater system support and belief in the integrity of the election. What drives this effect? Is it the election result itself that leads to a direct change in mass opinion or is it the elite messages – including charges of voter fraud – that often follow a contest? To disentangle the impact of mass mood from leadership cues as the mechanisms behind the winner effect, we use a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) design in a recent American election in which the leading candidate on the losing side did not claim to have lost because of vote fraud. We gathered parallel survey samples in the two days leading up to the polls closing and then the following two days once the definitive results became clear. Even in the absence of elite claims of vote fraud, we see strong and immediate shifts in mass views. Once the results became clear, those who supported the losing side became significantly less likely to trust that votes were counted correctly or to be satisfied with the election process, while trust and support for the process rose from pre-to post-election for voters on the winning side. We contribute to this literature by demonstrating that elite cues are not a necessary condition to drive the winner effect; it can be generated by mass attitudinal shifts that follow from the revelation of an election result alone.

  PublisherDOI

• The Stability of Immigration Attitudes: Evidence and Implications

  The Journal of Politics · 2021 · 194 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Social psychology
  • Positive economics

  Do voters have stable immigration views? While any account of immigration politics must make an assumption about whether underlying attitudes are stable, the literature has been ambiguous regarding the issue. To remedy this omission, we provide the first comprehensive assessment of the stability and change of immigration attitudes. Theoretically, we develop a framework to explicate the temporal assumptions in previous research and find that most studies assume attitudes are flexible. Empirically, we draw on nine panel data sets to test the stability question and use multiple approaches to account for measurement error. We find that immigration attitudes are remarkably stable over time and robust to major economic and political shocks. Overall, these findings provide more support for theories emphasizing socialization and stable predispositions rather than information or environmental factors. Consequently, scholars should exercise caution in using changing context to explain immigration attitudes or in using immigration attitudes to explain political change.

  PublisherDOI

• The Stability of Immigration Attitudes: Evidence and Implications

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 74 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Dillon Laaker

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  2 shared

• Craig M. Burnett

  2 shared

• Alexander Kustov

  2 shared

• Alexandra Filindra

  2 shared

• Anthony Anderson

  1 shared

• Thad Kousser

  Yale University

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D. , Political Science

  University of California, San Diego

  2023

• M.A., Political Science

  University of California, San Diego

  2019

• A.B., Government and Law

  Lafayette College

  2016

• A.B., Philosophy

  Lafayette College

  2016