Campaigns and Elections

Whether you want them or not, those election predictions are back. Every election cycle, we are asked to get off the pollercoaster and predict the future of politics. When it comes to presidential election forecasting, working in politics can make us poor judges of the outcome of an election: after all, we are determined to help our candidates win, which can make us less objective in predicting electoral odds than we should be. In other words, wanting to win is not always a predictor of winning. Check out our podcast on presidential election predictions. 

Seth Masket is a political scientist, professor, and author. Seth has written multiple books, including No Middle Ground, which explores how the United States has shifted toward candidates that represent ideological extremes, The Inevitable Party, which examines different attempts to change the current party system and why they failed, and Learning From Loss, a book that walks readers through the Democratic party’s response to the 2016 election up to 2020. Currently, he is writing another book, The Elephant in the Room, which he expects to publish in 2025. Seth is a Professor at the University of Denver, where he also serves as the Director of the Center on American Politics. This week, we asked Seth questions about his life and career path.

As you plan for midterm elections, especially if you’re progressive democrat, you may not want to leave your house. With all the things going on in the country it may seem like the midterm elections are a forgone conclusion and not in a good way. Historical trends come to a similar conclusion.

Chuck Rocha has been doing ground-breaking work from the start. At 29, he was the first person of color named National Political Director of the United Steelworkers of America (USW). In 2010, Rocha left USW and founded Solidarity Strategies, a Latino-owned and operated political consulting firm. In 2016 and 2020, he worked for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, acting as a senior advisor for the 2020 campaign.

The midterm elections on Tuesday made for a rough night for Democrats. As many of us emerge from the fetal position under our desk, I decided to write down my observations of the midterm elections of 2014, and what could be done differently in future elections. You can listen to some of my observations here as well.