With the 2024 election less than three weeks away, all eyes are on the swing states that are likely to decide the presidency. The Scholars Strategy Network has put together a list of over two dozen university-based researchers and professors with relevant expertise in these key states who are available and happy to comment on voting, state politics, and some of the top issues of this election.
Arizona
Kenicia Wright, Assistant Professor of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University
Key topics: racial/ethnic politics, women in politics, and health policy.
Email: [email protected]
Wright studies how representation and policy outcomes are influenced by social identities, such as race/ethnicity, gender, and class. She regularly applies intersectionality in her work, which centers on power and the effects of being comprised of multiple marginalized identities. Her recent Working Papers examine how social identities influence the public’s perceptions of candidates and their political behavior.
Georgia
Henry (Chip) Carey, Associate Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University
Key topics: election administration
Email: [email protected]
Carey is a comparative political scientist who has specialized in transitional elections in nascent democracies during the 1990s and more recently in hybrid regimes under democratic erosion. He has monitored elections as part of international NGOs and organizations, and in the past decade he has been a board member of Democracy Counts, an NGO focused on monitoring elections, primarily in the USA, but also abroad.
Richard Doner, Goodrich C. White Professor Emeritus, Emory University
Key topics: history of Georgia elections, election administration, poll working
Email: [email protected]
Doner’s academic work focuses on variation in economic development, especially upgrading and innovation, as a function of institutions (such as business associations), and politics (cabinet changes, resource endowments, crises). Doner was extensively involved in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential campaigns, including the creation of a “speakers bureau” to engage rural Georgia voters.
Whitney Rice, Rollins Assistant Professor in of Behavioral, Social and Health Education Sciences, Emory University
Key topics: abortion politics and policy
Email: [email protected]
Rice is the Director of the Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast, which conducts research to inform social, systems and policy change in the direction of greater reproductive equity in the US Southeast region, in partnership with reproductive health, rights and justice organizations.
Bernard Tamas, Professor of Political Science, Valdosta State University
Key topics: electoral systems, election forecasting, gerrymandering, third parties
Email: [email protected]
Tamas is the author of The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties and is an expert on elections, electoral history, third parties, and electoral systems. He is a frequent media commentator for national and international news outlets.
Michigan
David Dulio, Distinguished Professor of Political Science & Director of the Center for Civic Engagement, Oakland University
Key topics: state politics, political campaigns
Email: [email protected]
Dulio teaches courses on campaigns and elections, Congress, political parties, interest groups, and other areas of American politics. Dulio has published fifteen books, with two of his most recent being Campaigns and Elections American Style: The Changing Landscape of Political Campaigns and Cases in Congressional Campaigns: Split Decision.
Erica Frantz, Associate Professor in Political Science, Michigan State University
Key topics: threats to democracy, electoral integrity
Email: [email protected]
Frantz studies authoritarian politics and the dynamics of political change. Her most recent book, The Origins of Elected Strongmen, looks at the key causes of the contemporary wave of democratic backsliding around the globe, where democracies are collapsing from within at the hands of their elected leaders.
Karyn Lacy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Key topics: race and state politics
Email: [email protected]
Lacy’s research focuses on black elites, race relations, residential segregation, identity, parental socialization, and suburban inequality. She is the author of the award-winning book, Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class.
William Lopez, Clinical Associate Professor of Public Health, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Key topics: immigration politics and policy, deportation, immigrant activism
Email: [email protected]
Lopez’s research, teaching, and writing address the experiences of immigrants in the rural U.S. He is the author of the award-winning book, Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid.
Robert Manduca, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Key topics: economic inequality, urban-rural inequality
Email: [email protected]
Manduca’s research focuses on urban and regional economic development and the consequences of rising inequality for social life in the United States. One emphasis of his work is the importance of federal policy decisions in shaping the economic geography of the US. Another research area focuses on declining upward income mobility in the US and other countries.
Lazita Nejvardi, Associate Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University
Key topics: voting rights, voter fraud beliefs
Email: nazita@msu
Nejvardi’s work focuses mainly on issues related to religion, race, and ethnicity in American politics; political behavior; voting rights; and immigration. She has particular expertise on US Muslims and their political attitudes and behaviors.
Tony Reames, Tishman Professor of Environmental Justice, University of Michigan
Key topics: climate and energy politics and policy, environmental justice
Email: [email protected]
Reames’ research investigates fair and equitable access to affordable, reliable, clean energy, and explores the production and persistence of energy disparities across race, class, and place. He was recently a presidential appointee in the Biden-Harris Administration serving as Deputy Director for Energy Justice and later Principal Deputy Director for State and Community Energy Programs at the U.S. Department of Energy.
North Carolina
Cassandra Davis, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Key topics: natural disasters
Email: [email protected]
Davis has researched environmental disruptions, specifically exploring how extreme events impact historically and socially marginalized communities and the extent to which these groups ultimately recover from an event. Dr. Davis’ scholarship also focuses on dismantling forms of oppression and racism that are situated in spatially disadvantaged communities, causing them to be ill equipped to face repeated events.
Daniel Kreiss, Edgar Thomas Cato Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Key topics: Campaigns, journalism, elections, democratic processes, mis/disinformation
Email: [email protected]
Kreiss studies journalism, politics, and elections, and is the faculty director of a disinformation research center at UNC Chapel Hill.
Gladys Mitchel-Walthour, Professor and Dan T. Blue Endowed Chair of Political Science at North Carolina Central University
Key topics: Race and politics, African Americans and voting; Black College students in NC and voting
Email: [email protected]
Mitchell-Walthour studies racial politics in the USA and Brazil. She is the author of The Politics of Survival: The Political Opinions of Social Welfare Beneficiaries in Brazil and the USA and is an Executive Board member of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
Jonathan Oberlander, Chair and Professor of Social Medicine and Health Policy & Management, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Key topics: healthcare policy and politics, healthcare reform, Medicare, ACA
Email: [email protected]
Oberlander’s research focuses on U.S. health care policy, the politics of health care reform, and Medicare. He has written on access to health insurance, health care cost control, Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Affordable Care Act.
Whitney Ross Manzo, Associate Professor of Political Science, Meredith College
Key topics: gender and politics
Email: [email protected]
Manzo’s research focuses on representation and power, broadly conceived. Within these areas, she examines barriers to women’s electoral success, the impacts of women in office, the impacts of different electoral laws, and public opinion.
Candis Watts Smith, Professor of Political Science, Duke University
Key topics: race and state politics
Email: [email protected]
Smith’s expertise highlights the role race, racism, and structural inequality play in shaping the American political landscape. Specifically, she focuses on the evolution of the expressions and role of racial attitudes among Americans. Her research also speaks to questions of social policy and resource allocation in a federalist system, with a focus on reproductive healthcare.
Pennsylvania
Robin Brooks, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Key topics: race, gender, and politics
Email: [email protected]
Brooks’s research focuses on matters concerning Black communities in the United States and the wider African Diaspora, particularly African American and English-speaking Caribbean populations. Overarching themes in Brooks’s writings include inequality, social justice, working-class studies, and education policy.
Ziad Munson, Professor of Sociology, Lehigh University
Key topics: politics, populism, abortion policy
Email: [email protected]
Munson’s research focuses on conservative social movement mobilization and political violence. He is best known for his work on the pro-life movement and abortion politics, and terrorism. His current research focuses on populism and the changing meaning of politics in suburban America.
Erica Owen, Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh
Key topics: Economic policy and politics, labor
Email: [email protected]
Owen’s research focuses on the politics and economics of trade, global production, and automation, emphasizing the economic well-being and political influence of labor. Overarching themes in Owen’s writing emphasize how workers and multinational firms influence policy outcomes governing trade and foreign direct investment.
Dara Purvis, Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Key topics: abortion politics and policy, LGBTQ rights, gender
Email: [email protected]
Purvis’ research focuses on transgender children’s rights and family law. Purvis’ most recent research focuses on the constitutional speech rights of transgender students, disputes over frozen embryos, the constitutional parental rights of fathers, and abortion.
Lara Putnam, UCIS Research Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
Key topics: political participation and social movements, Pennsylvania politics
Email: [email protected]
Putnam researches social movements and political participation in local, national, and transnational dimensions. Her writings on grassroots politics in rust belt Pennsylvania and beyond have appeared in scholarly and public-facing venues. She is co-lead of the Southwest PA Civic Resilience Initiative at Pitt’s Institute for Cyber Policy, Law, and Security.
Jennie Sweet-Cushman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Chatham University
Key topics: gender and politics, Pennsylvania politics
Email: [email protected]
Sweet-Cushman teaches courses in public policy, American politics, women and politics, and state and local government. A former successful congressional campaign manager herself and the former assistant director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics, Jennie pays particular attention to state-level politics in Pennsylvania.
Niki vonLockette, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Pennsylvania State University
Key topics: economic policy, class and race, inequality
Email: [email protected]
VonLockette’s work examines the impact of residential segregation on unemployment and wages for blacks and Latinos in metropolitan areas. She has served as consultant for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Miranda Yaver, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, University of Pittsburgh
Key topics: healthcare politics and policy, voting rights, the role of courts
Email: [email protected]
Yaver’s research focuses on administrative burdens and health insurance disparities, the politics of health care reform, and reproductive health policy post-Dobbs v. Jackson. Prior to working in academia, she worked in the field on several political campaigns and worked on voter protection issues through People for the American Way.
Wisconsin
Michael Wagner, William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Key topics: news and social media, misinformation, voting
Email: [email protected]
Wagner studies how individuals’ use of the overall information ecology affect what they believe, what their preferences are, and how they participate politically. He is co-author of the book Political Behavior of the American Electorate, one of the most-assigned election books in American universities.
Barry Burden, Professor of Political Science & Director of the Elections Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Key topics: election administration, voting
Email: [email protected]
Burden’s research and teaching focus on U.S. elections, public opinion, representation, and the U.S. Congress. His recent research has centered on aspects of election administration and voter participation. He is the author of Personal Roots of Representation, co-editor of The Measure of American Elections, co-author of Why Americans Split Their Tickets, and editor of Uncertainty in American Politics.
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