Teaching Election 2024 from a Bipartisan Perspective: What Could Go Wrong?

Overview

Join UVA Politics Professors Jennifer Lawless and Mary Kate Cary for an insider’s view of their acclaimed “Election 2024” class. Moderated by Professor David Leblang, this program will delve into the dynamics of the 2024 presidential and congressional elections. Learn how conventions, debates, and get-out-the-vote efforts work, and see their “She Said / She Said” segments in action, all while gaining insights from their bipartisan guest experts. With 500 students in person, this is UVA’s largest undergrad class! What could possibly go wrong?

Register to learn about Election 2024 and what makes this class so remarkable!

Speaker Biographies
 

Mary Kate Cary, Adjunct Professor, Department of Politics and Director of Think Again, Department of Politics, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Mary Kate Cary is currently an adjunct instructor for the University of Virginia’s Politics Department. She teaches small seminars for undergraduate students: “Political Speechwriting,” and “Democracy Out Loud,” which studies the greatest speeches in American political history. Mary Kate also co-teaches “Election 2024” before 500 undergraduates — leading one of the only political science classes in America taught from both sides of the aisle. In 2021, Mary Kate served on UVA’s Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry, which produced the University’s policy on free speech. She is the director of Think Again @ UVA, an initiative to promote free speech, viewpoint diversity, critical thinking, and intellectual humility through student-facing programming.

Mary Kate was a White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, served as spokesman for then-Attorney General Bill Barr during the Bush Administration, and as Deputy Director of Communications at the Republican National Committee under Haley Barbour. She currently serves as the chair of the advisory council for the George and Barbara Bush Foundation, and is the executive producer of 41ON41, an award-winning documentary film about President George H.W. Bush. For the last three decades, she has written speeches for a variety of business, political, and non-profit leaders.
 

Jennifer Lawless, Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, and Chair of the Department of Politics, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Jennifer L. Lawless is the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and the Chair of the Politics Department. She is also affiliated with UVA’s Miller Center and the Batten School. Lawless’ research focuses on political ambition, campaigns and elections, and media and politics.

She is the author or co-author of eight books, including News Hole: The Demise of Local Journalism and Political Engagement (with Danny Hayes) and It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (with Richard L. Fox). Her research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, has appeared in numerous academic journals and is regularly cited in the popular press. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Political Science and the recipient of the 2023 Shorenstein Center’s Goldsmith Book Prize (for the academic book that examines the intersection among media, politics, and public policy).

Lawless graduated from Union College with a B.A. in political science, and Stanford University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science. A long time ago (2006), she sought the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in Rhode Island’s second congressional district. Although she lost the race, she remains an obsessive political junkie.
 

David Leblang, Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics, Department of Politics, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (moderator)

David Leblang is the Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics. He is the Randolph Compton Professor of Public Affairs at the University’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, where he is Director of Policy Studies. Leblang is a scholar of political economy with research interests in global migration and in the politics of financial markets. His recent publications include The Ties That Bind: Immigration and the Global Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2023), “Labor Market Policy as Immigration Control: The Case of Temporary Protected Status” (International Studies Quarterly, 2022), and “Framing Unpopular Foreign Policies” (American Journal of Political Science, 2022). In 2015, Leblang was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Mentoring Award by the University of Virginia and in 2016 he received the Outstanding Mentoring Award from the Society of Women in International Political Economy of the International Studies Association.
 

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