In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Jack Wippell, covers the new article by Andrew C. W. Myers, “Press Coverage and Accountability in State Legislatures.”
Andrew Myers’s APSR article offers a rich investigation into how local press coverage influences the functioning of U.S. state legislatures. The article is motivated by a well-documented conundrum in American democracy: while state legislatures hold immense power, from shaping healthcare and education to administering elections, they remain less visible institutions for most voters. Voter knowledge of their state legislators is dismally low, and conventional electoral accountability mechanisms appear weak. Myers poses a simple yet important question: would state legislatures function differently if voters had better access to information about them?
To answer this question, Myers builds on foundational work in political science that examines how media coverage shapes accountability in federal elections. He does so by constructing a measure of “congruence” between newspaper markets and state legislative districts that captures random variation in press coverage. In essence, when a newspaper’s readership overlaps closely with a legislative district, that district is more likely to receive detailed coverage of its legislators. Crucially, this overlap is not strongly related to most political or demographic variables. Myers validates this measure using an original dataset of nearly one million news articles from over 270 newspapers between 2000 and 2020, showing that congruence predicts substantial variation in actual legislator coverage.
With this validated instrument in hand, the study proceeds to trace the causal chain from press coverage to legislative accountability. First, Myers shows that increased congruence significantly improves voter knowledge: respondents in congruent districts are more likely to correctly name their state legislator or report having heard of them. Importantly, he shows that this increased knowledge is specific to their state representative, that is, congruence does not boost general political knowledge, lending credibility to the causal throughline. Second, Myers finds that higher press coverage reduces “roll-off” in state legislative races, that is, voters are more likely to complete their ballots further down-ticket when they are exposed to stronger legislative coverage.
“In state legislatures, where baseline voter awareness is low, the presence—or absence—of press coverage may alter who wins, how accountable they are, and how effectively they govern.”The study then examines how press coverage shapes electoral dynamics more broadly. Here, Myers finds that in districts with stronger press congruence, moderate candidates receive a larger electoral boost, consistent with theories that informed voters penalize extremism. He also shows that the incumbency advantage is greater in high-congruence districts. This supports the theoretical prediction that more visibility makes incumbents “stickier” because voters converge to their preferred candidate faster.
Finally, Myers turns to what happens once legislators are elected. Here, he finds that stronger press coverage is associated with greater legislative effort and better representational quality. Legislators in congruent districts sponsor more bills, miss fewer votes, and are more likely to serve on important committees. They also tend to vote in ways that are more ideologically aligned with the median voter in their district.
The article concludes with a sobering implication: the rapid erosion of local news infrastructure may have far-reaching democratic costs. In state legislatures, where baseline voter awareness is low, the presence—or absence—of press coverage may alter who wins, how accountable they are, and how effectively they govern. For scholars of American politics, the paper provides both a valuable contribution and a flexible tool (the congruence measure) for future work on media and representation. For more generalist readers, the takeaway is clear: local news is a cornerstone of the way democratic governance “works,” especially in the often-overlooked local arenas (state legislatures) where much of American policy is actually made.
- Jack Wippell is a PhD Student in the Department of Sociology at The Ohio State University. His research interests cover political sociology, social movements, and culture, and his current focus is on the emergence, spread and mobilization of far-right extremism across the United States and Europe. He also has interests at the intersection of computational and qualitative methodologies.
- MYERS, ANDREW C. W. 2025. “Press Coverage and Accountability in State Legislatures.”, American Political Science Review, 1–19.
- About the APSA Public Scholarship Program.