Kudzu Vine

John Sides is Professor of Political Science and William R. Kenan, Jr. Chair at Vanderbilt University. He studies political behavior in American and comparative politics. He is an author of The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and The Battle for the Meaning of America, and The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Election  He helped found Good Authority and its predecessor, The Monkey Cage, both of which are sites about political science and politics. He has also written for such outlets as FiveThirtyEight, the Boston Review, Bloomberg View, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. He serves as Research Advisor to the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. He received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He previously taught at the University of Texas-Austin and George Washington University.

Jon Michaels is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. His scholarly and teaching interests include constitutional law, administrative law, national security law, the separation of powers, presidential power, regulation, bureaucracy, and privatization. Michaels is a graduate of Williams College, Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and Yale Law School, where he served as an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal. Michaels clerked first for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court. Immediately prior to his appointment at UCLA, Michaels worked as an associate in Arnold & Porter’s National Security Law and Public Policy Group in Washington, DC. A two-time winner of the American Constitution Society’s Cudahy Award for scholarly excellence in administrative law and an elected member of the American Law Institute, Michaels has written essays for the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Foreign Affairs, Time Magazine, and the Guardian. He is a frequent legal affairs commentator for national and local media outlets. His 2017 book, Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic, was published by Harvard University Press. Michaels’s second book, titled Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy will be published by Simon & Schuster/Atria in October 2024.

Steve Singiser will join to discuss what happened in the 2024 election and where the Democrats go from here with a special emphasis on Steve's home state of California.

Jeff Sinnger will join us to discuss the election results from the 2024 Campaign

Tom Jensen will join us on our last season before Electtion Day 2024 and share with us what the latest polling is telling us about Tuesday's election.

Political strategist Mike Mikus will join us to discuss Pennsylvania politics

Milan Singh of BluePrint & Welcome PAC will join us to discuss the results of the Yale Youth Poll and the 2024 election

Lakshya Jain and Armin Thomas will join us to discuss Michigan politics and more!

Drew Savicki will join us to discuss North Carolina politics and more.

Mark Rieke will join us to discuss his election forecasting model.

Dr. Anthony Chergosky will join us to discuss Wisconsin politics and more. Dr. Chergosky teaches courses on American government and research methods. He a political analyst and has been quoted in local, statewide, national, and international news media outlets. His research focuses on American political institutions (especially Congress), elections, political communication, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.  

David Nir will join us to discuss the rebranding of Daily Kos Elections to The Down Ballot: https://www.the-downballot.com/

Alice Driver is a writer from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. Driver was born in rural Arkansas in a house built by her potter father and her weaver mother. She attended Berea College in rural Kentucky, founded in 1855 to educate freed slaves and students with limited economic resources. Berea College charges no tuition, and thanks to its mission, she was able to take the years of financial risk needed to become a writer. Writing is how she seeks justice and equality in a world that is far from that. She is currently designing a workshop on gender-based violence for journalists in El Salvador via the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. She has a Ph.D.(2011) and MA (2008) in Hispanic Studies from the University of Kentucky, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City. She studied Spanish and Portuguese at Middlebury College Language Schools.

Bill Schneider is a former political analyst for CNN, Los Angeles Times, National Journal, The Hill and The Messenger; professor emeritus at George Mason University; taught at Brandeis University, Boston College and UCLA.

Melissa Deckman is the CEO of PRRI and a political scientist who studies the impact of gender, religion, and age on public opinion and political behavior. Deckman is the author of Tea Party Women (NYU Press: 2016), which examined the role of women in conservative politics. Her first book, School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics (Georgetown University Press: 2004) won the American Political Science Association’s Hu Morken Award for best book on religion and politics. Columbia University Press will publish her latest book, The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy this September. Prior to joining PRRI, Deckman served as the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs and Chair of the Political Science Department at Washington College, where she taught courses on American politics and research methods. Dedicated to promoting leadership opportunities for young women, she was the co-founder of Training Ms. President, a Maryland-based, non-partisan program that encouraged young women to consider running for political office. She is proud to have conducted research for IGNITE, a leading non-profit organization that builds political ambition in young women across the country. Deckman received her Ph.D. in Political Science from American University. A first-generation college student, she received her bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where she graduated class valedictorian.

Rachel Bitecofer will join us to discuss Project 2025 and the 2024 election

Barnini Chakraborty of the Washington Examiner will jojn us to discuss the 2024 Election

Logan Phillips from Race to the White House will jojn us to discuss the 2024 Election. Also, newly elected DNC member and 5th Congressional Chair Maria Banjo will be filling in for Tim Shiflett.

Sarah McCammon is an American journalist and a National Correspondent for National Public Radio, covering the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States. Her reporting focuses on political, social and cultural divides in America, including abortion and reproductive rights, the intersections of politics and religion, as well as breaking news. She previously reported for NPR Member stations in Georgia, Iowa and Nebraska.

Evan will join us to discuss the recently called UK elections and more!