I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame. A comparative political scientist, I study when, why, and where citizens allow political elites committed to realizing democratic governance to come to power through elections. A key argument that threads through my work and book project is that in electoral contests where democracy is most threatened by authoritarian-leaning contenders, marginal democracy-indifferent voters become pivotal and decisive in producing democracy-conducive election outcomes. My work combines theoretical frameworks that link aggregated micro-behaviors to macro-outcomes with a range of empirical strategies, including observational, experimental, and qualitative comparative case studies. My research has been appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, and the European Journal of Political Research.