2020 Elections

Using COVID-19 and Connecticut’s Primary Elections to Teach Political Science Concepts

Connecticut’s 2020 primary election is a great example of electoral politics to include in a variety of classroom lessons. For public policy courses, it showcases how focusing events, defined as “an event that is sudden; relatively uncommon; can be reasonably defined as harmful […]

Civic Education

Will The Pandemic Weaken The Union To The Point Of Collapse?

Over the past 20 years, I’ve taught thousands of students a particular narrative about how the US government formed—American colonists established mechanisms in the Constitution to help them solve significant collective action problems. It’s worth remembering that American government under the Constitution […]

2016 Elections

What You Need To Know About Election Polls

The surprising outcome of the 2016 presidential election led many people to question the credibility of public opinion polling. That’s a fair question, considering so many polls suggested Hillary Clinton would win the election. Twelve of the thirteen final national […]

2020 Elections

Heartland Dispatch: With Sanders Out, Kansans’ Primary Attention Turns to House, Senate, and State Races

Senator Bernie Sanders withdrew his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination this week, making former Vice President Joe Biden the presumptive party nominee to face President Trump this fall. Are the primaries over, then? Not […]

2020 Elections

Political Participation in Immigrant Communities

Political participation is one of our most important civic duties. It is part of the original contract we the people agreed to when we founded this country, both native born citizens and immigrants. However, the vote is […]

2020 Elections

Engaging Student Voters in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s primary elections will be held on Tuesday, April 28. In comparison to the early caucuses and primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, and on Super Tuesday, this feels like a late and potentially inconsequential date […]