Cepni, OguzhanDemirer, RizaGupta, RanganPierdzioch, Christian2026-03-192026-03-192026-02Cepni, O., Demirer, R., Gupta, R. & Pierdzioch, C. (2026), Political Geography and Stock Market Volatility: The Role of Political Alignment Across Sentiment Regimes. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 73: e70028: 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.70028.0036-9292 (print)1467-9485 (online)10.1111/sjpe.70028http://hdl.handle.net/2263/109072We study the nexus between political geography and stock market volatility by examining the interrelation between political geography and the predictive relation between the state- and aggregate-level stock market volatility via recently constructed measures of political alignment. Using data for 1994–2023 and random forests, we show that the importance of the state-level volatilities as drivers of aggregate volatility displays considerable variation in the cross-section and across time. Stronger political alignment of a state with the ruling party is associated with a lower contribution of the state's volatility to aggregate volatility. This negative link is significant during high-sentiment periods.en© 2025 The Author(s). Scottish Journal of Political Economy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Scottish Economic Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.Investor sentimentPolitical alignmentRandom forestsStock market volatilityArticle