Celebrities, Lies, And Outsiders: How This Election Surprised One Political Scientist

In the run-up to this election season, The Party Decides seemed to be on every political science nerd’s reading list. The 2008 book by political scientists Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller laid out how the invisible primary — party elites’ behind-the-scenes machinations before primary season — […] Read more »

A Tale of Two Elections: Clinton’s 2016 Primary Performance Versus 2008

One striking aspect of the Democratic primary race was the stark role-reversal in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance compared with her narrow loss to Barack Obama in 2008’s Democratic nomination battle. Whereas she ran against Obama in 2008, she positioned herself as his successor at every turn during her race against […] Read more »