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Vermont drops ‘AHEAD’ healthcare model; shifts to $195M rural health fund
Vermont is abandoning a federal health care reform program started last year because of changes in federal funding.
Ozlo's Sleepbuds 2 build on Bose's sleep earbud legacy
Ozlo’s first major update to its sleep earbuds introduces longer battery life, improved connectivity, enhanced audio, and new sleep features as the startup continues the product line once abandoned by Bose.
Cowboys’ 1st-Round Pick Called NFL’s ‘Most Impactful’ Offseason Move
ESPN's Matt Bowen called the Cowboys selecting Ohio State safety Caleb Downs at No. 11 overall the NFL's 'Most Impactful' Offseason Move. The post Cowboys’ 1st-Round Pick Called NFL’s ‘Most Impactful’ Offseason Move appeared first on HEAVY.
Cowboys’ $90 Million Starter Sends Clear Warning Ahead of Camp
Entering training camp, the vibes feel different for the Dallas Cowboys, as this feels like a Super Bowl-contending team.The Cowboys’ offense is about as elite as it gets, and the defense dramatically improved in the offseason. Even with the additions on defense, there is still some concern about how this unit will look.Last year, the […] The post Cowboys’ $90 Million Starter Sends Clear Warning Ahead of Camp appeared first on HEAVY.
Alabama's Kalen DeBoer Sets the Record Straight After Recent Backlash
Alabama Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer has set the record straight on some comments he made that resulted in fan backlash.
Phillies news: trade market, Alec Bohm, Kevin Gausman
If you had to pick one: SP, RP or OF?
Bradyn Swinson sets record straight on Drake Maye minicamp collision
Patriots edge rusher Bradyn Swinson finally had his chance to clear the air on his minicamp collision with Drake Maye.
Bills legend Jim Kelly offers further health update, provides perspective
Another health update provided by former Bills, Pro Football Hall of Fame QB Jim Kelly.
Heat stress is rising globally, raising health concerns for billions: Study
Climate change is causing frequent, well-studied, extreme heat events. Less well understood is the additional heat stress experienced by billions of people as a result of those extreme heat events. However, a new study published in Nature Climate Change aims to change that. The study analyzed more than 70 years of climate data stored in […]
RWJBarnabas Health Programs, Clinician Honored by New Jersey Hospital Association
The New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA) recognized two exceptional programs and one outstanding individual from the RWJBarnabas Health system at the 2026 Best at the Beach Awards, held last night at Ocean Place Resort & Spa in Long Branch. This annual awards program celebrates organizations that share NJHA’s commitment to improving the health of New Jersey.
Alabama adds commitment from top 2028 linebacker prospect
The Crimson Tide received a commitment from a premier pass rusher.
Jumbo Package: Alabama adds 4-star EDGE to 2028 class
Your latest Crimson Tide news and notes.
62-Year-Old Baha’i Prisoner Denied Medical Furlough Despite Critical Health Concerns
According to information received by IranWire, Neda Badakhsh, a 62-year-old Baha’i citizen, remains incarcerated in Dowlatabad Prison in ...
Tracking State Rural Health Transformation Plans
KFF Health News is working to collect and post approved plans, by state, here and this database as more states respond to emails and public records requests for their documents.
Florida State Signs FCS All American CJ Richard Jr
Mike Norvell bolsters a depleted secondary with the ball-hawking Illinois State transfer. The Freshman All-American arrives in Tallahassee ready to anchor a defensive unit desperate for playmakers.
LSU's National Championship Odds May Depend on One Overlooked Metric
The LSU Tigers have their eyes set on the ultimate goal this season.
Will Kings’ Karaban Thrive Around Better Players?
After overcoming a rocky Summer League start, UConn’s championship-winning connector looks to translate his elite basketball IQ and catch-and-shoot prowess into a reliable weapon alongside Sacramento’s veteran stars.
Alabama already stacking blue-chip commits in 2028 cycle
The third season of the Kalen DeBoer era in Tuscaloosa is almost underway and conversations about Alabama football remain as heated as ever. After signing a pair of top-six recruiting classes in each of his first two cycles, DeBoer and his staff are far from the top of the Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings in […]
Iran war casualty count eclipses 600 as Pentagon quietly changes accounting
The Pentagon updated its war casualty database Saturday, recording more than 140 new wounded and restoring the four soldiers killed due to Iranian strikes last weekend.
Former Alabama Crimson Tide Player Blasts Kalen DeBoer
A former Alabama Crimson Tide player has taken quite a shot at Kalen DeBoer.
Political consultant Clint Reilly built a lasting legacy
Clint Reilly helped elect a who's who of California Democrats and trained generations of political consultants. He was a genius in the business of campaigns.
Local health center helps students prepare for school year at free health fair
News Channel 3 - Memphis, TN News, Sports and Weather
State senator, law enforcement host brunch to tackle minority mental health, teen and domestic violence
On Saturday, Missouri Sen. Barbara Ann Washington and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated brought community members together to discuss ways to address mental health challenges in Kansas City.
Kalen DeBoer's Alabama Future Lands Resounding Take From Insider
Is it possible that the Alabama Crimson Tide could part ways with Kalen DeBoer after 2026?
Samsung (KOSE:A005930) Launches Galaxy Watch Ultra2 And Watch9 With AI Health Features
Samsung Electronics launched the Galaxy Watch Ultra2 and Galaxy Watch9, expanding its smartwatch lineup with new models focused on AI-powered health and fitness features. The devices introduce AI-driven health insights, advanced sports tracking, and specialized dive capabilities, supported by partnerships such as Mares for underwater use. The launch adds fresh products to Samsung’s wearable and digital health ecosystem, providing another data point for investors watching its consumer...
MLB Umpires Target Yankees José Caballero
On July 31, 2025 Jose Caballero held the unique distinction of players playing the opponent they were traded to when he turned a double play for the Tampa Bay Rays and conducted his postgame interview for the New York Yankees. Nearly a year later, Caballero holds the distinction of being the player ...
CBS affiliate changes impact NFL fans in multiple markets
NFL fans in several U.S. television markets will have to turn to a different channel to watch their games, as CBS and Nexstar announced major changes to the network affiliations of several local stations. The changes will affect fans in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jackson, Mississippi; Bismarck, North Dakota; Birmingham, Alabama; Greenville, South Carolina; and Rapid…
Titans Sign 2-Time Super Bowl Winner Before Training Camp
The Tennessee Titans signed a defensive back a few days before the start of training camp under Robert Saleh The post Titans Sign 2-Time Super Bowl Winner Before Training Camp appeared first on HEAVY.
Nick Saban and other experts evaluate Arkansas' Ryan Silverfield
Everyone in the SEC knows Ryan Silverfield has a tough road ahead of him
OpenAI claims its artificial intelligence gained access to the Internet on its own and breached a ‘partner’
The technology company claims the incident stemmed from a cybersecurity test gone wrong, where its application escaped a closed environment and broke into an external database to complete its task of being an elite hacker
Good for the Neighborhood events offer school supplies, free health screenings
Good for the Neighborhood events offer school supplies, free health screenings
US health panel recommends easing restrictions on controversial peptides
Vote from advisory group – whose members include people linked to peptides industry – likely to embolden RFK Jr
North Star announces new partnership
North Star Health Alliance has announced plans to partner with a group that already operates hospitals in St. Lawrence County.
ISU’s Scott College of Business SHRM chapter earns award
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) awarded a 2025-2026 Superior Merit Award designation to Indiana State University’s SHRM student chapter. The SHRM Stude...
WATCH: Brandon Gill corners law school gatekeeper with DEI question she won't answer
Rep. Brandon Gill pressed ABA president on whether diversity principles would justify rejecting a third Black Supreme Court justice nomination.
Schiff calls out Trump's corruption, warns against complacency
In a floor speech, California's senator plans to assay the president's conflicts of interest and offer a prescription for cleansing once Trump leaves office. He warns against numbness or complacency.
Entertainment
The New BROADway Divine Drag Show will present an original “Heathers”-themed drag cabaret at 9 p.m. Aug. 8 at the Bedford Arts Cooperative, 110 W. Pitt St., Suite 2, Bedford.
Texans Trade Pitch Sends C.J. Stroud to Desperate NFC Team
The Texans would need to have a significant change of heart. The post Texans Trade Pitch Sends C.J. Stroud to Desperate NFC Team appeared first on HEAVY.
Aaron Boone Comments On Jose Caballero Umpire Dilemma
The dilemma today in game one of a doubleheader between Jose Caballero and the home plate umpire Quinn Wilcott caught the frustration of not just Caballero, but manager Aaron Boone and the Yankees coaching staff. Umpire crew chief Adrian Johnson, as beat writer Brendan Kuty of The Athletic quoted, stated, “MLB told umpires not to […] The post Aaron Boone Comments On Jose Caballero Umpire Dilemma appeared first on HEAVY.
Alabama endures major roster turnover from 2025
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WIAT) — Less than 50% of Alabama’s 2025 roster is back with the Tide this season. One group bucking that trend, however, is the defensive back room. “The more time we’ve spent together, we’ve been able to communicate more,” cornerback Zabien Brown said. “You don’t have to spend as much time, you know, […]
Report: Jimmy Garoppolo open to playing after considering retirement
Liverpool primed for business: Bezos, Bhatia and the next steps at Anfield
Fenway Sports Group looks to be locked in talks with a consortium led by the son-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal while the Amazon founder has now been linked
Clint Reilly, influential California political consultant, dies at 79
Reilly ran successful campaigns for California's most recognizable politicians, including Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi. He later turned his attention to real estate and local media
Politics of Dignity: How Status Inequality shaped Redistributive Politics in India - WID
Politics of Dignity: How Status Inequality shaped Redistributive Politics in India Why do some marginalized groups prioritize representation over redistribution? Poulomi Chakrabarti explores how status inequality has shaped redistributive politics in India.
NC State’s schedule could open unexpected darkhorse path
The college football season is less than a month away, and the race for a College Football Playoff berth is about to begin. The expanded playoff field will almost certainly feature some new faces. One of those teams could come…
Jumbo Package: Alabama next up at SEC Media Days
Your latest Crimson Tide news and notes.
Why one of the world's largest health databases matters
The NIH's All of Us program could accelerate medical research — but its future depends on continued funding.
Pakistan Unveils Rs 18.8 Trillion Budget 2026-27: Tax Relief for Salaried Class, Landmark Exemption for Women's Health Amid Regional Crisis
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb presents federal budget for fiscal year 2026-27 during a National Assembly sessionISLAMABAD, July 22, 2026 (...
Bucs' Trotter Named Training Camp ‘Rookie to Watch’
As Todd Bowles faces a make-or-break season, second-round pick Josiah Trotter emerges as the heir to Lavonte David’s legacy in a revamped Tampa Bay defense.
New 360 Behavioral Health autism care center opens in Visalia
A new 360 Behavioral Health autism care center is now open in Visalia, bringing Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA, therapy services closer to families in the Central Valley.
Spain’s World Cup win gives Las Vegas tapas restaurant a business boost
Spain’s World Cup win gives Las Vegas tapas restaurant a business boost
Kirby Smart, Georgia football chase return to CFP championship
Smart, now the dean of SEC coaches, channeled Nick Saban for parts of his Tuesday appearance at SEC Media Days
Health fears linger in a Brazilian neighborhood built over oil waste
SÃO SEBASTIÃO, Brazil — In front of the house where she has lived for decades, Cosma da Silva points to nearby homes in her Itatinga neighborhood and lists a string of cancer cases. “There’s a woman with cancer over there. Another one lives in that building. And yet another one there [points at the place]. People […]
When a SpaceX rocket crashes into the moon, scientists will be watching
On Aug. 5, 2026, an abandoned piece of space junk is predicted to crash into the moon near a spot called Einstein Crater. Astronomers will be watching because the collision and aftermath may be visible ...
RWJBarnabas Health's Dr. Kelly Keefe Marcoux to be Inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing
Kelly Keefe Marcoux, PhD, CPNP-AC, PPCNP-BC, CCRN, Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer at Children's Specialized Hospital, part of the Children's Health network at RWJBarnabas Health, has been selected to become a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (Academy).
Garmin challenges Whoop with subscription-free Cirqa Smart Band
The Cirqa's screen-less design may not command attention, but the data should
New Numbers Present Sony’s Case For Abandoning PlayStation Discs
While Sony has been shamed out of many fan-hated changes over the years, that was never going to be the case for its decision to abandon physical discs starting in 2028.
Piitch-timer gamesmanship triggers scuffle between Pirates, Yankees
New York Yankees shortstop Jose Caballero triggered a benches-clearing scuffle with the Pittsburgh Pirates through manipulation of MLB's pitch clock.
Laredo Public Health continues ABA caregiver workshop series
The Laredo Public Health Department will host the fourth session of its ABA Parent & Caregiver Workshop series, focusing on teaching life skills and independence for kids with special care...
Extreme heat is eroding health, productivity and incomes of Dhaka’s informal workers
DHAKA — On June 28, as the afternoon sun beat down on Bangladesh capital Dhaka’s sprawling Tejgaon neighborhood, Samiha Begum gathered her two school-aged children and headed for the shade of Hatirjheel Lake. Their narrow one-room home in a nearby slum had become unbearable. She said, “The room starts heating up as soon as the […]
Jumbo Package: Alabama Basketball adds a 7-footer for 2026
You wanted big men? Nate Oats got a BIG man
9 Vitamins and Supplements That May Support Brain Health
Certain vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats benefit brain health by supporting nerve function, protecting brain cells from damage, and improving focus.
2026 FIFA World Cup
2026 FIFA Men's World Cup news, live scores, schedules, live streams, stats, standings, bracket and more from NBC Sports
Michigan extends key tax breaks for billions of dollars of real estate development in Detroit
Real estate developers are breathing a sigh of relief now that state lawmakers have agreed to an extension of two key property tax abatements used for projects around Michigan.
Abacus Health Solutions Named Preferred Vendor of American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration
Abacus Health Solutions, a leader in chronic disease management solutions, has been selected to join the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration Preferred Partner Program (AP3), a trusted network of vetted organizations serving healthcare employers nationwide.
Jose Caballero's "routine'' sparks Yankees-Pirates bench clearer
Pirates' reliever Dennis Santana's overreaction to Jose Caballero's habitual, but legal, stall tactics at the plate led to an eighth inning incident.
Should Rangers Pursue Struggling Yankees Reliever?
The New York Yankees aren't traditional sellers, but they have a reliever in Camilo Doval who's been named a fit for the Texas Rangers.
Miami Dolphins Discussion: You Just Knew But Were Wrong Edition
We ask Miami Dolphins fans which past player they beieved would be a star for the team but ultimatly were busts.
UFC Freedom 250 Fails to Knock Out The Ratings
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) If UFC fans wanted one image to say, “Hey, Paramount+ is crushing it with their UFC rights deal,” I could provide that image. Here it is: (Reminder: this is my creation of the Nielsen Top 30, since Nielsen doesn’t combine the lists or include sports. I take all three lists and combine them. Some streaming TV shows probably have higher ratings than many of the films on this list.) Look at that! UFC Freedom 250 is number one! It topped the Nielsen “Top 30” list for shows and films that made the top ten the week of 15-June. So if you’re a UFC fan or supporter of Paramount+, that’s the good news for you this week. This program topped the ratings charts for one week. Everything else is bad news, or at least a huge caveat to that story, which I’ll explain today in the first part of this week’s Streaming Ratings Report—for the weeks of 8-June and 15-June—which is a double issue since I’ve been writing on a bunch of topics recently. UFC Freedom 250 is one of the biggest streaming events of the year, and super relevant to Paramount+’s strategy, so it merited its own article. Let’s dive in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of June 8th to June 21st 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Check Out My Interview on UFC 250 at MMA Draw After you read this article, if you want even more thoughts on UFC and Paramount-Skydance/Paramount+, I did a written interview with MMA Draw. They asked me to answer some questions about UFC Freedom 250, and I was happy to chat with them. Find it here: [ The MMA Draw Newsletter Did Paramount really overpay for the UFC? What the data tells us so far If you know the history of American television, you also know that combat sports is often a leading indicator of the future… Read more a day ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Nate Wilcox and Zach Arnold ](https://www.themmadraw.com/p/did-paramount-really-overpay-for?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) I never thought I’d need a combat sports newsletter in my life, but the good folks at MMA Draw publish an excellent one on UFC, MMA, pro wrestling, boxing and more, analyzing both the sports themselves and the politics, economics and antitrust issues that impact them. Check the article and their newsletter out! Paramount+ Has Its Best Sporting Event of All Time…But Was It Worth It? Before we look at the UFC Freedom 250 data in particular, let’s talk about what we can’t say. Namely, let’s start with the lack of comparisons. First off, I’d love to put a chart out comparing this fight to past UFC fights on Paramount+…but we don’t have the data. This is the first time we’ve gotten Nielsen data about a Paramount+ UFC fight. As far as I can tell, Paramount provided data for the first fight, but it was a proprietary datecdote (saying it had “an average minute audience” of 5 million “views”) and then, for two fights, we got the linear viewership numbers when they aired on CBS, but no streaming data. Everything else was crickets. We also can’t compare this fight to other fights/combat sports on streaming, in particular the MMA and boxing, because Netflix also didn’t use Nielsen to track those events, opting for TVision and VideoAmp, respectively. (This isn’t Paramount’s fault, but does still suck.) We also can’t compare to UFC’s fights that used to be on ESPN+, since we don’t have any data for that, plus Disney+ didn’t have marquee fights. The comparisons would not be apples-to-apples. Can we compare to past Pay-Per-View fights? Absolutely not. The comparisons would absolutely NOT be apples-to-apples. That didn’t stop Paramount+, though, who bragged that their UFC events have reached drastically more people than past PPV fights. Duh. Sorry, but I gotta make this point again. A basic tenet of economics is that the cheaper something becomes, the more people consume or buy it. That’s Econ 101. (Sometimes pundits call things “Econ 101” that are actually like Econ 210 or even PhD-level economics, but no, this is really like first or second class basic economics.) Yet I still see one analytics firm consistently say that more people watch films on streaming than PVOD proves streaming which means that the streaming window is more valuable than the PVOD window. No, it’s not! Same thing here. Pay-Per-View events back in the day could be really, really, really expensive! So whole groups of people pitched in to buy them. That increased the perceived value of, say, the Mike Tyson fight. Or a UFC numbered event. So yes, the fact that Paramount+ makes numbered UFC fights essentially “free” if you’re already a Paramount+ member means consumption will go up. Obviously. Same for Netflix and their boxing matches. They’re talking about fights that used to cost consumers, in some cases, $50 in 1996…which is over $100 in today’s dollars. Over 1.6 million people paid that to watch the Tyson-Holyfield fight! Again, streaming is essentially “free”. Or $10 to $20, depending on what streamer we’re talking about and what tier you’re on. No wonder more people are “watching”. (Plus, Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing also helps these numbers.) UFC Freedom 250 Did Well…But I Have A Lot of Worries So what can we compare the fights to? Well, the good news is Nielsen put out that the fight averaged 7.0 million viewers for UFC Freedom 250, which is a solid number for a fight. We also know the length, at roughly 4 and a half hours. (I saw different run times, but this seems to be the consensus considering it started at 8 pm, had a delay and then finished after midnight on the East Coast. If you assume a shorter run time, then yes, the total hours viewed would go down.) That means I have the two numbers needed to add this to my Nielsen database. And then…I can compare this viewership to the NFL: And, uh, not great. But also within striking distance, mainly because the runtime for this event was so long. I’d also add that this event had viewership equal to a regular season NFL game on streaming, but if anything, it was more comparable to an NFL playoff or Super Bowl-esque event. And you can compare viewership to the top football games on broadcast, cable and streaming, and it’s not impressive at all: We can also compare it to other sports that week, including the NBA Finals and start of the World Cup: Again, not great. The NBA generated roughly four times as many average viewers each game for its NBA Finals. The World Cup has similarly big numbers. Also, that’s just a tiny fraction of the 25 most watched sporting events each week. The NBA, NHL and FIFA World Cup had many, many more games racking up hours. We could also compare this to other streaming programs to get an idea of “is this a good investment?” and here is how it ranks compared to other top Paramount+ programs: The worry here? Well, unlike scripted programming, which has rewatchability, older fights/sporting events have very little library value. Very, very few people are rewatching these fights, especially years from now. Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers. Then, in their quarterly earnings report, they only ended up with 700K subs. Not great! They claimed they dropped lower-value international subscribers, but that’s why I tend to discount subscriber additions when they’re leaked to the press.1 I expect we may see a bump again for UFC Freedom 250, but I’d caution using subscriber growth so soon after these events to judge the success, since new subs with high churn (see Peacock) aren’t great either. Also, analysts often want to attribute all subscriber growth to their favorite/pet show, and that just doesn’t make sense. The biggest caveat for UFC Freedom 250 and Paramount’s very first UFC marquee event is that these could be high watermarks for the sport. UFC Freedom 250 had an incredible amount of earned media coverage compared to most UFC fights. I mean, it had wall-to-wall national news coverage in the lead up to the event. (The first fight also had a lot of promotion from Paramount since it was first.) Other fights could reach this bar—say the Conor McGregor return to the Octagon—but they’ll be fewer and far between. Was This Deal Worth It? All to ask: is this Paramount deal worth it? In this case, I think the UFC Freedom 250 numbers are more distracting than helpful. This fight did well and compares well to other top sporting events. But we know that the first marquee event was at least a third smaller, if Paramount’s own data is to be believed. And it’s likely the other fights are much, much, much smaller. And then you get to the paycheck that Paramount-Skydance paid. FIFA’s World Cup cost about the same for Fox, but clearly generated multiples more total viewership. (Though it’s only every four years.) The NBA is much more expensive, but until the playoffs, they likely didn’t pay for itself. Even still, Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video likely overpaid. So, in that context, the NBA may be an overpay that makes the UFC look not so bad. But two overpays don’t make an underpay, to paraphrase the old cliché about wrongs and rights. And looking at UFC Freedom 250 as the likely ceiling of MMA on Paramount+, Paramount-Skydance likely paid too much. Share 1 I would love regular reports on subscriber additions by programs, but as is, it’s mostly leaked or rumored in haphazard ways.
Alabama health officials report 28 cases of Cyclospora amid national outbreak
The Alabama Department of Public Health has reported 28 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis in the state as of July 20, as part of an ongoing national outbreak.
WHO evacuated health workers from Ebola treatment center due to armed clashes
On July 15, gunfire erupted between armed groups near an Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Nyankunde (or Nyakunde), located 45 kilometers (28 miles) southwest of Bunia in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Following the fighting, medical personnel from the World Health Organization (WHO), Africa CDC and the NGO Samaritan’s Purse evacuated from Nyankunde, […]
3 storylines for Alabama football entering 2026 SEC media days
Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer is likely to speak on a variety of topics at 2026 SEC media days, most notably the Crimson Tide's quarterback battle.
Monitoring the health of NH bats requires a little eavesdropping
A group of bat advocates, including scientists at UNH, NH Fish and Game and volunteers have been working together to monitor the health of the state’s bats.
Shaky political "science": breakdown of the peer review process
[This article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in December 2025, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting (RCV). Many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first four articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report; the second one analyzed a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report; a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research; and a fourth article that analyzed seven studies sponsored by New America’s political reform program that deployed flawed methodology based on “simulated” elections instead of real-world elections, which when combined with some basic misunderstandings of RCV, produced odd and misleading results]. In this fifth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we examine two flawed studies on the impact of RCV on voter turnout authored by San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel. McDaniel’s research in these two papers stands out for its puzzling methodology, inadequate and cherry-picked data, and faulty analyses that not only misunderstands ranked choice voting but reflects a basic misunderstanding of politics in general. The first of the McDaniel studies actually passed through a peer review process and then was subsequently published by the Journal of Urban Affairs, despite its obvious errors. It is perplexing that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the errors and send it back to McDaniel for a rewrite or outright rejection. This calls into question the credibility of the peer review process itself. The peer review process is supposed to represent the intellectual pinnacle of the profession – a way for academics to certify the quality of each other’s work, and to act as a check against sloppy research. In the case of the McDaniel study, the peer review process failed. Yet his flawed study has been cited dozens of times by other political scientists in their own flawed works — an unvirtuous circle of academic research. Here is the first Jason McDaniel study that we analyzed: “Writing the Rules to Rank the Candidates: Examining the Impact of Instant-Runoff Voting on Racial Group Turnout in San Francisco Mayoral Elections,” by Jason McDaniel, 2016, Journal of Urban Affairs. This study covered San Francisco’s use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in mayoral elections, purporting to show that RCV reduces voter turnout overall, increases voter errors, and has a negative impact on “marginal populations,” i.e. racial minorities, mainly as the result of the alleged complexity of RCV asking voters to rank candidates and having to be familiar with multiple candidates and related dynamics. McDaniel reached these conclusions by examining five San Francisco mayoral elections taking place in odd years (i.e. where there are no federal or state races on the ballot) from 1995 to 2011, comparing three earlier non-RCV races (in 1995, 1999 and 2003) with the later two RCV races (in 2007 and 2011). Only two RCV races were studied, and as McDaniel acknowledged, only the contest in 2011 was “competitive” (that contest in 2007 was the first mayoral election using RCV, and incumbent mayor Gavin Newsom won easily in the first round of counting, earning 74% of first choices and far ahead of the second place candidate who had just 6.3% of first choices). Yet even the allegedly competitive contest in 2011was won by an incumbent with a landslide margin of nearly 20 points. No other elections were studied by McDaniel, even though San Francisco elects 17 other offices besides mayor with RCV, including the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors (the name for the city council) in even years, and six other citywide offices in odd years. Previous academic research has found that competitive elections can stimulate greater voter involvement and higher turnout. For unexplained reasons, this study ignored at least 34 other RCV races between the years 2004 to 2011, many of which were very competitive and had high voter turnout. Instead, McDaniel’s analysis based its conclusions on data from only a single, marginally-competitive mayor’s race using RCV. These 2007 and 2011 mayoral elections were the only two RCV elections that McDaniel used as the sole basis for his small data set to determine the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Despite having no meaningful data to inform his study, McDaniel nonetheless concluded that RCV lowered turnout when compared to the previous three mayoral non-RCV elections using two-round runoffs. Then, using the same inadequate database of San Francisco elections, McDaniel also found that “Instant-runoff voting is associated with a significant decline in Black voter turnout and White voter turnout…On average, Black voter turnout decreases by 18 points and White voter turnout decreases by 16 points …” But how could he credibly arrive at that conclusion when his study was based on voter turnout in two RCV contests that were not even remotely competitive? Beyond that, McDaniel tacitly admits that the key determining factor driving Black voter turnout was not RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable Black candidate. McDaniel wrote, “Black voter turnout was about 17 percentage points higher for the two elections that featured an African American candidate compared to the three elections that did not” — but one of those three elections did not use RCV. The same dynamic was present for White voter turnout, in which higher turnout was not correlated with RCV vs non-RCV elections, but the presence of a viable White candidate. Beyond that, McDaniel’s voter turnout results, whether correlated with the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections, showed no clear patterns. In his Figure 1, he shows low Asian voter turnout in the non-RCV elections in 1999 and 2003 when there was no viable Asian candidate running, but in the 2007 mayoral election using RCV, there is still no viable Asian candidate, yet Asian turnout increases dramatically. For Latinos, voter turnout is virtually the same in 1999 (no viable Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2003 (leading Latino candidate, non-RCV elections), 2007 (no viable Latino candidate, RCV elections) and 2011 (leading Latino candidate, RCV elections). Meanwhile White voter turnout increased dramatically from a low in the 2007 mayoral election, in which the leading candidate was a white incumbent, to the 2011 election in which there were no leading white candidates that finished any higher than sixth place with 5.6% of the vote. Clearly other factors were determining voter turnout than either the race of the candidates or RCV vs non-RCV elections. Despite these inconsistent findings, McDaniel boldly marches forth to render conclusions about the impact of RCV on different groups of racial voters, even though his conclusions are not remotely supported by his data. This looks like the worst kind of “data cherry picking” to cover up a puzzling conclusion based on a poor data set involving only two RCV elections, neither of which were remotely competitive. McDaniel’s cherry picking didn’t stop there. In calculating voter turnout for the three non-RCV mayoral elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003, he failed to mention that in each of these years there was a two-round runoff election, with a first round election in November in which no candidate garnered a winning majority of the vote, followed by the decisive runoff in December. So there were two non-RCV elections in each election year. But McDaniel only decided to include one of the two elections in his data set, apparently the December runoff in each year (which had higher turnout in two out of the three mayor’s races, and lower turnout in the third). So he ignored the November 1995 election, the November 1999 election when turnout was only 45 percent, and the November 2003 election when turnout was only 45.7 percent. This is flawed methodology based on blatant cherry picking, since McDaniel simply omitted three elections worth of data that did not fit within his frame. His study should never have made it through a peer review process, and it is an embarrassment to political science that not only was it approved for publication, but it has been uncritically cited by dozens of other political scientists. Share A “study” without wider context or credible data Lacking a data set that included even a single competitive RCV mayoral race, McDaniel declared that RCV lowered voter turnout in 2011, when turnout was 42.5 percent. But he also ignored -- or did not realize -- that voter turnout in mayoral elections during 2011 had sharply declined in all big cities, including far more steeply in nearby Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s election in 2011 had the second highest turnout of any mayoral election in the nation’s 22 largest cities from 2008-2011. Was 2011 just a particularly low turnout year all across the country, perhaps because the country was still reeling from the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2008-2010? McDaniel ignored this factor and did not search for alternative explanations beyond his flawed thesis. Furthermore, while McDaniel suggested that RCV leads to more “overvotes” – which is an invalidated ballot in which a voter, in either a non-RCV or RCV race, makes a mistake and selects two candidates for a single choice – he failed to address that in the June 2012 US Senate primary contest, which used the typical “one-choice” plurality method and did not use RCV, there was more than five times as many overvotes in San Francisco and Oakland than in the RCV mayoral elections in those cities. Additionally, turnout had been significantly higher and more representative in RCV elections for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors races -- that McDaniel didn’t even bother to study -- as compared to previous “delayed two-round runoffs” for those offices, often higher by as much as 40% in the RCV races. Perhaps the most surprising irony was that an earlier study co-authored by McDaniel (Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco by Francis Neely and Jason McDaniel, 2015, California Journal of Politics and Policy) found that overvotes are often more common in lower-income precincts, but that the pattern of overvoting is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. Wrote Neely and McDaniel: “[Overvote] errors appear to be a function of complexity in general and not IRV per se…. the pattern of overvoting is similar in both IRV and non-IRV contests…Even among votes cast in a top-of-the-ticket race like U.S. Senate, overvoting occurs in an uneven fashion” (IRV, or ‘instant runoff voting,’ is another name for ranked choice voting in single-winner contests). So McDaniel not only contradicted his own conclusion in his earlier study with Neely, but the earlier study had been an important corrective for one of the most frequently made mistakes made by anti-RCV political scientists – a continual failure to provide crucial context by pairing a comparative analysis of real world RCV elections with an analysis of real world plurality or other electoral methods. Unfortunately McDaniel’s earlier study does not get cited much by other researchers, and McDaniel did not even cite it in his own flawed study analyzed above. Incredibly, McDaniel cherrypicked McDaniel, even as his flawed study has been cited dozens of times. Despite being a textbook example of poor political “science,” featuring both inadequate as well as cherrypicked data, the shelf life of McDaniel’s study has been extended endlessly by other political scientists and media outlets who have cited it uncritically. Equally troubling, the Journal of Urban Affairs put this paper through its peer review process and published it despite its numerous flaws. McDaniel gets it wrong, Part II Not content with producing one shoddy, confused paper, McDaniel produced another one a few years later, here is the link: Electoral Rules and Voter Turnout in Mayoral Elections: An Analysis of Ranked-Choice Voting by Jason McDaniel. San Francisco State Univ. (McDaniel, 2019). In this paper, McDaniel extended his previous flawed research focused on San Francisco, about voter turnout and voter impact, to multiple RCV cities through the 2018 elections. In his data set he included San Francisco, Minneapolis, St Paul, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro and Santa Fe. He then compared their turnout in mayoral elections to non-RCV cities, and to mayoral elections in those cities held before first RCV usage, and concluded “a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV.” But he replicated many of the same mistakes as his first study presented above. While in this study McDaniel attempted to distinguish between various factors, such as odd year vs. even year elections, competitive races vs. noncompetitive, contests with open seats and other factors, the analysis is superficial and inadequate. He attempts to incorporate so many often-conflicting variables that his conclusions are once again unsupported by the actual data, and ultimately unconvincing (this second study never underwent a peer review process). For example, McDaniel declared that for RCV cities “in elections that are more competitive than average (margin of victory less than 20%), there is no significant RCV effect on voter turnout.” Yet McDaniel is a professor in a city, San Francisco, in which the 2018 special election using RCV to fill a mayoral vacancy was exceedingly close, decided by a margin of only one percentage point, and resulted in the second highest turnout in San Francisco history for a mayoral election. Illustrating the complexity involved in assessing the critical factors in turnout, that special election was held on the same election day as federal and state offices, which tends to boost turnout. Yet more voters participated in that RCV mayoral election than voted on the same day in the non-RCV primary for governor in which former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was running. Even more puzzling, in this study McDaniel inaccurately cited his own previous study from 2015 with Neely. McDaniel wrote, “Neely and McDaniel (2015) examine individual ballot image files within a natural experiment, and find higher rates of ballot errors in RCV elections compared to non-RCV elections” (emphasis added). However, we quoted from that 2015 study several paragraphs above, and in actual fact Neely and McDaniel actually concluded the opposite -- that the pattern of overvoting – which is the most common form of ballot error – is similar in both RCV and non-RCV contests. McDaniel also ignored the fact that in Bay Area RCV elections held in even years – at the same time as federal and state elections, when turnout is highest -- the “undervote” (that is, the dropoff in ballots cast for governor or mayor) has declined, which contradicts his thesis that the act of ranking ballots in RCV elections is too complex and presents a barrier for certain demographics of voters. To his credit, McDaniel actually acknowledged another contradiction in his own paper, which found a negative RCV turnout effect in some odd-year elections but not others, admitting that “may present a challenge to the theory that increased complexity [from RCV] will have a marginal negative effect on voter turnout.” But he tried to wallpaper over that contradiction by blaming it on an unlikely source -- bad election administration. McDaniels wrote, “This would suggest that the negative impact of RCV on voter participation may be alleviated by high quality election administration,” without presenting any data or even anecdotes to support such an unfounded theory. While competent election administration of any election, whether RCV or non-RCV, is crucially important, there is no credible research that supports the far-fetched notion that the quality of election administration has much of an impact on voter turnout in US elections, whether using RCV or otherwise. Upgrade to a $5 subscription The unvirtuous circle of academic research It is puzzling how McDaniel’s first study could have survived the peer review process for the Journal of Urban Affairs. The mistakes in McDaniel’s first study above should have been obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of ranked choice voting as well as elections in general, and elections in San Francisco specifically. It undermines faith in the credibility of the peer review process to think that a jury of peer political scientists did not catch the egregious errors and reject McDaniel’s sloppy research and paper. And it remains a black mark on political science that this thoroughly discredited study has been cited dozens of times by other researchers. Indeed, in our research paper it became apparent that many political scientists cite each other’s flawed research to pad their list of citations and to legitimize their own flawed research, creating an unvirtuous circle of political science. More broadly, McDaniel’s voter turnout studies, like other studies evaluating RCV’s impact on turnout, lacked a recognition that no credible opinion or research can claim that RCV increases voter turnout merely because so many voters are excited to vote for their favorite candidates instead of “lesser evil” candidates without worrying about spoilers. Instead, with respect to turnout, the advantage of RCV has always been that, in most places where it has been used, it has eliminated a pre-November primary or post-November runoff, which usually saw about half the turnout of the November general election. This is especially true during even years when there are state and federal elections on the ballot which substantially drive turnout more than local contests. Any study that does not adequately account for this non-November primary/runoff vs November general election dynamic, or odd year vs even year election factors, is simply not credible. Both of McDaniel’s studies largely failed on those grounds. Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to a $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS…your digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
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