The 2020 US Election: Who’s Winning?

Electoral College 2016

Held three weeks out from the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, this event saw our expert panel survey the real state of the race. Who was up and who was down? What would the effect of early voting be? How were demographic shifts affecting electoral outcomes? How important would turnout prove, and what were the early indications as to who was (and was not) turning out to vote? How impactful had the Presidential debates been? What was the state of House and Senate races?

For this first panel in our election series, the RAI was delighted to welcome David Wasserman, House Editor for the Cook Political Report; Samara Klar, Associate Professor in Politics from the University of Arizona; and legendary New York Times journalist Thomas Edsall. The event was chaired and moderated by RAI Director, Professor Adam Smith.

This event was recorded and can be viewed on the RAI's Youtube channel.
An audio recording is available as a special episode of the RAI's
Last Best Hope podcast.

Panellists

David Wasserman is House Editor for The Cook Political Report, where he is responsible for analyzing U.S. House Races and is recognised as one of the nation's top election forecasters. He is a contributor to NBC News and has served as an analyst for the NBC News Election Night Desk for the 2008, 2012, and 2016 presidential elections. Chuck Todd, host of NBC's Meet the Press, recently called David ‘pretty much the only person you need to follow on Election Night.’

Samara Klar is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy. Her most recent book is Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction (Cambridge University Press), co-authored with Yanna Krupnikov. She is widely published in political science journals and founded the website WomenAlsoKnowStuff which promotes the work of women in political science.

Thomas Edsall is an American journalist and academic, best known for his 25 years covering national politics for the Washington Post. He is currently a weekly columnist for the New York Times, covering demographic and strategic trends in American politics. He was appointed a Professor of Journalism at Columbia University in 2006. He is the author of five books on American politics and his writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, New Republic, Washington Monthly, and the New York Review of Books.