Though elections may be periods of confusion and uncertainty for the average voter, many social scientists see them as opportunities for research and data collection — including Carson Goh ’25, a government and quantitative social science double major. On Nov. 25, Goh won the Wilson Carey McWilliams award for best undergraduate research paper at the annual New England Political Science Conference in Newport, R.I. Goh’s paper, titled “Competition or Representation? How the Public Views Substantive and Descriptive Effects of Independent Redistricting Commissions,” explores how minorities are represented in elections. His research found support for independent redistricting commissions decreases when they are presented as threats to majority-minority districts — those where racial or ethnic minority populations form a district’s largest voting bloc. The Dartmouth sat down with Goh to discuss his background, research and plans after his upcoming graduation this spring.
How did you find out you won the Wilson Carey McWilliams award?
CG: Government professor Herschel Nachlis, who teaches at the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and is part of the board at the New England Political Science Conference, emailed me at the end of November 2024 and said, “Congratulations, I just saw you won the award.” I got a more formal email from the director of the conference on Nov. 25, 2024, saying, “Congratulations, you won this award.” I’m really honored to be selected. It’s something that I’ve been spending a couple of years on here at Dartmouth.
What was it like attending the conference? How did you prepare for it?
CG: I’ve been part of the Stamps Scholar Program here at Dartmouth since my sophomore summer. I’ve been working on a research project looking at public opinion related to political representation. I’m really interested in studying how the public views majority-minority districts and greater minority representation, and how that view fosters more competitive elections through redistricting at the same time. Since then, I’ve been conducting various survey experiments, which culminated in the middle of my junior year when I was working on this paper after fielding a survey in 2023.
My mentor for the project and my quantitative social science and government advisor, Jason Barabas, recommended that I go to a couple of conferences and get feedback on my project. At the New England Political Science Conference, I had an opportunity to present with other undergraduates from throughout the New England area and also get feedback from others. It was a really great experience. What you get to do is write up your paper and create a presentation to go along with it to highlight your main findings and potential limitations or struggles that you went through. It’s a great way to strengthen your research, and I was really interested in getting that feedback as well.
What inspired you to focus on elections in your research?
CG: I’m actually from southern New Hampshire, and I’ve always been really interested in contested elections and understanding how we researchers understand who wins and who doesn’t win elections. How do we look at representatives and ways that they can better represent and look like the individuals they are supposed to represent? I think elections are a great way to understand how people vote, why they vote and what motivates them to vote, and that’s what’s driven my research.
What advice would you give to someone interested in conducting political research?
CG: Find an area of politics that interests you, whether that be elections or international relations. Find a topic that resonates with you, motivates you, drives you, and look for questions that you’ve been thinking about. When I was in my first year here, I was always thinking about the impact of minority representation because it’s something that’s important to me. Once you start asking the questions that you think are unresolved in the world, start looking into them as much as you can.
Here at Dartmouth, we have so many great professors who are working on something tangentially related. I had the amazing opportunity to meet Barabas, and he’s been super helpful. There are so many opportunities like the Stamps Scholars Program and fellowship programs here at Dartmouth that made my research opportunities possible, so I’m really grateful as well. It also looks like applying your coursework — that’s what happened with my project.
How is your work impacted by the polarized political climate of the United States, especially in the aftermath of the 2024 election?
CG: I think what’s really awesome about political science research is that it’s data-driven and fact-based. If you go through a rigorous methodology, then others can’t really question your findings, and you should let the data speak for itself. You’re just going to present what the data tells you, which might be something you do or don’t agree with, and that is something that hopefully cuts through political discourse these days.
How has your time at Dartmouth impacted your research?
CG: I was really inspired during my first year here when I took a class with Barabas on polling and public opinion. I knew that I really wanted to do something in that realm during my time at Dartmouth, so a lot of my coursework, especially as a quantitative social science and government double major, has been furthering that. I’ve been really fortunate to take a lot of really cool classes, whether that be in how to design experiments or how to analyze survey results.
What are your post-graduate plans? Do you plan to continue your research?
CG: After graduation, I will be working in Boston for Bank of America doing audit work. But after that, I hope to apply to law school and work in voting rights. The voting rights law angle is really fascinating to me, and my research is really pertinent to that and something I hope to continue. I’m currently writing a thesis related to a lot of the work that I presented and building on that even further. Through this award, I also get to publish my paper in the New England Journal of Political Science, so I’m working with them right now to publish it, which is also a really cool opportunity.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
