Todd Donovan

Professor

About

Todd Donovan is Professor of Political Science at Western Washington University, with previous visiting appointments and fellowships in Australia and New Zealand.  He has been involved with public opinion surveys in the US, UK, and other countries. His research examines the intersection of political behavior, representation and electoral institutions; as well as public opinion, direct democracy, and elections. He is a recipient of the University's Olscamp Award for excellence in research, has authored, co-authored, and co-edited a dozen books (published by Oxford, Chicago, Michigan university presses), and has published scores of peer reviewed research articles. He has also advised media in several countries, and has served as an expert witness in state and federal courts in the US on election matters in several cases, and his research has been cited by the United States Supreme Court. He currently serves as a non-partisan local elected official and remains defending champion of the Bellingham Pub Run.

Research Interests

  • Representation and electoral systems, political behavior and electoral politics, public opinion, direct democracy, American state politics & policy

Current Courses

Fall 2023

  • PLSC 353 – State and Local Politics
  • PLSC 444 – Administrative Internship

Selected Publications

Recent Books

  • Donovan, T., editor.  2018. Changing How America Votes.  Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

  • Bowler, S, and Donovan T. 2013.  The Limits of Electoral Reform.  Oxford University Press.

Recent Articles

  • Donovan, T.  2022. "Measuring and predicting the radical right gender gap." West European Politics. Forthcoming.

  • Donovan, T. 2021. "Right populist parties and support for strong leaders." Party Politics. 27 (5): 858-869. 

  • Donovan, T. and S. Bowler. 2020.  "Who wants to raise taxes?" Political Research Quarterly.

  • Donovan, T. 2019. "Authoritarian attitudes and support for radical right populists." Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. 29:448-464.

  • Donovan, T., C. Tolbert and K. Gracey.  2019. “Self reported understanding of ranked choice voting.” Social Science Quarterly. 100(5):1768-1776.

CV

Donovan CV_0.pdf (244.96 KB)