Leonardo Dantas

I am a PhD candidate in Politics interested in polarization, electoral behavior, and partisan communication––with a focus on Brazil. I hold a MSc from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and a B.A. summa cum laude in Political Science and International Development Studies from UCLA.

For my Master's thesis, I investigated whether the moral language of right-wing legislative candidates in Brazil shifted toward the left when these politicians ran in less developed, left-leaning districts. As a PhD student, I focus on Comparative Politics and Quantitative Methods. I am a fellow of Quantitative Analysis in Political Science (QAPS) and of Data-Driven Social Science (DDSS).

Passionate about R programming, I am currently curious about text- and video-as-data approaches to examine how partisan candidate discourse influences voter behavior. My latest work details how to best measure the concept of "affective polarization" on text.

If you are a Latin American student considering applying to PhD programs in the United States, feel free to contact me at leodantas@princeton.edu.