Georgetown University Experts for the 2026 Midterm Elections

WASHINGTON - Georgetown University professors offer their issue expertise and resources for journalists seeking interviews on various subjects related to polling in the United States and the 2026 midterm elections.

To request to schedule an interview, please contact Georgetown's Office of Communications at [email protected].

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American Politics Experts

Hans Noel, associate professor of government

• Areas of expertise: political coalitions, political parties and ideology, presidential nominations politics and partisan politics
• Writing: The New York Times, "There Is a Better Way to Pick a Presidential Nominee"
• Quoted in articles including Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Voice of America

Open to: TV, Radio and Print

Michael Kazin, professor of history

• Areas of expertise: U.S. political and social movements in the 19th and 20th centuries
• Quoted in The Washington Post, NBC News and TIME Magazine and frequent contributor to The New York Times, the New Republic, the Nation and other periodicals and
• Editor-in-chief of the Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History
• Writing: 2022 Straus and Giroux, "What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party"
• Research can speak to the impact of debates in presidential elections, the historical backgrounds of political parties and socio-political movements

Open to: TV, Radio & Print

Michele Swers, professor of government

• Areas of expertise: women and politics, congress and congressional elections
• Writing: 2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, "Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence" and 2023 The Forum, "After Dobbs: The Partisan And Gender Dynamics Of Legislating On Abortion In Congress"
• Previously provided expertise on Congressional policymaking and elections and the role of women in politics to media outlets including The NewsHour, Washington Post, CQ Weekly and Politico

Open to: TV, Radio and Print

Nadia Brown, professor of government, chair of the Women's and Gender Studies Program and affiliate in the African American Studies program

• Areas of expertise: political behavior, race and ethnicity politics and gender politics
• Writing: 2026 Edward Elgar Publishing, "Politics of Intersectionality and the Study of Violence.",2023 Routledge Press,"Approaching Democracy: American Government in Times of Challenge", 2021 Oxford University Press,"Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites"
• Research lies at the intersection of identity politics, legislative studies and Black women's studies

Open to: TV, Radio and Print

Public Opinion and Political Polling Experts

Charles Dorison, assistant professor at the McDonough School of Business

• Areas of expertise: conflict resolution, trust, reputation, receptiveness to opposing views, and how strong political views can impact conflict and collaboration in the workplace
• Writing: 2022 Journal of Experimental Psychology, "The contingent reputational benefits of selective exposure to partisan information"
• Research focuses on conflict over strongly-held attitudes, especially misperceptions of conflict counterparts and interventions to overcome these misperceptions

Open to: TV, Radio & Print

Chris Warshaw, professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy

• Areas of expertise: American politics, elections and voting behavior, environmental policy, local government and urban policy, public opinion and state politics
• Writing: 2022, University of Chicago Press, "Dynamic Democracy: Public Opinion, Elections, and Policy Making in the American States", 2022, The Journal of Federalism, "Districts for a New Decade-Partisan Outcomes and Racial Representation in the 2021-22 Redistricting Cycle", 2021, Cambridge University Press, "The Effect of Television Advertising in United States Elections" and 2020, Cambridge University Press, "Accountability for the Local Economy at All Levels of Government in United States Elections"
• Research evaluates the links between public opinion, elections and political outcomes in federal and state governments. In addition to, examining how political institutions, such as term limits or direct democracy, influence political representation.

Open to: TV, Radio & Print

Jonathan Ladd, associate professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Department of Government

• Areas of expertise: American politics, public opinion, media and politics, political communication, elections and voting behavior
• Writing: 2026 Cambridge University Press, "American Presidential Campaigns in the Attention Economy"
• Current work examines the relationship between confidence in institutions and support for democracy and served as the Principal Investigator of the American Institutional Confidence Poll in 2018, 2021, and 2023.

Open to: TV, Radio and Print

Michael A. Bailey, Colonel William J. Walsh professor of American government in the Department of Government and McCourt School of Public Policy

• Areas of expertise: American politics, data science, public opinion polls, statistics and the Supreme Court
• Writing: 2024 Cambridge University Press, "Polling at a Crossroads", 2020 Oxford University Press, "Using Econometrics For Political Science And Public Policy"
• Previous work covering trade, Congress, election law and the Supreme Court, methodology and inter-state policy competition has been published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, World Politics, the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization

Open to: TV, Radio & Print

Michael (Mike) Rossetti, adjunct faculty at the McDonough School of Business

• Area of expertise: artificial intelligence, machine learning, information retrieval, cognitive neuroscience, data science, database management, management of information systems, natural language processing (ChatGPT), bots, disinformation and the influence on politics, music recommendation algorithms
• Worked as a polling data analyst for winning U.S. presidential campaign, an analytics director for a Silicon Valley startup, and a tech consultant for the U.S. government
• Recent research: 2023 PLOS ONE,"Bots, Disinformation, and the First Impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump."

Open to: TV, Radio & Print

Social Media and Politics Experts

Leticia Bode, professor in the Communication, Culture, and Technology program and the inaugural research director of the Knight-Georgetown Institute

• Areas of expertise: misinformation, political communication, political behavior, media effects, new media, and social media and the intersection between media, technology, and politics
• Writing: 2020 Brookings Institution Press, "Words That Matter: How the News and Social Media Shaped the 2016 Presidential Campaign" and 2022 Taylor & Francis, "Political Events in a Partisan Media Ecology: Asymmetric Influence on Candidate Appraisals"
• Research examines the incidental exposure to political information on social media, effects of exposure to political comedy, selective exposure and political engagement in new media, and the changing nature of political socialization given the modern media environment

Open to: TV, Radio & Print

Economic Experts

Harry Holzer, John LaFarge Jr. SJ Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy

• Areas of expertise: U.S. labor market and U.S. economy, workforce development, anti-poverty policies, immigration and racial equity
• Previously served as a former Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Labor and was a founding faculty director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality
• Expertise has contributed to state and federal policies in a number of policy areas including the First Step Act of 2018, the American Recovery and Reconstruction Act

Open to: Print, Radio & TV

Legal Experts

Paul Smith, visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center

• Areas of expertise: civil rights, election law and voting rights
• Currently serves as the Senior Vice President at the Campaign Legal Center and has argued in front of the Supreme Court 21 times, including for Lawrence v. Texas and Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn
• Recent Writing: 2023 American Bar Association, "The Supreme Court, Gerrymandering, and the Rule of Law"

Open to: Print, Radio & TV

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