2016 Election

More ugliness is in the forecast for the presidential campaign, says a Vanderbilt professor. Read More

Josh Clinton, co-director of Vanderbilt's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, answers your questions about the 2016 presidential campaigns, the Republican and Democratic national conventions, and more. Read More

Ethnocentrism, a term explained in a 2009 book by Vanderbilt's Cindy Kam, is showing up in a major way as a driver in the campaign of Donald Trump. Read More

In an election season that will shatter the record for money spent on a presidential campaign, political scientists at Vanderbilt and UCLA have created SpotCheck, a new approach for assessing political ads using internet-based surveys. Read More

Many of Donald Trump’s supporters share a view of the world as a chaotic, threatening place that is changing too rapidly, says a political scientist at Vanderbilt University, and this authoritarian outlook may be what’s drawing them to the strong rhetoric of Trump. Read More

Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are both riding on the anger of the working class, although their messages and intentions couldn't be more different, says a Vanderbilt historian. Read More

Presidential candidate Donald Trump may be inadvertently tapping into a phenomenon that is energizing U.S. Latinos against him when he talks of sending illegal immigrants home and building a wall blocking off Mexico. Read More

When Latinos hear tough talk about immigrants and immigration from politicians, their level of political trust is reduced and they start identifying more with their ethnic group than other qualities such as class or religion. Read More

Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer, the nation’s leading expert on negative political advertising, is available to comment on the U.S. Democratic and Republican presidential primary elections. Geer co-chairs Vanderbilt’s Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Read More

President Obama is set to talk to the nation on Jan. 12 for his final State of the Union address. Vanderbilt has an array of experts available. Read More

Female candidates have to be more qualified than their male opponents to prevail in an election because many people don’t see women as leaders, according to research that reveals hidden bias that can emerge in the voting booth. Read More

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Immigration must be stopped before newcomers overwhelm our generous welfare system, producing babies with full citizenship rights who add even more strain on social services. So goes a familiar argument for sealing the borders of the United States. “In a lot of respects we have the discussion… Read More

Paul Kramer explains why history is repeating itself in the battle over immigration. Kramer has written about immigration and border issues for the New Yorker and Slate, and been featured on National Public Radio. He has spent the last decade studying U.S. immigration history, and he’s working on a book about the forces that push people into leaving their home countries and immigrating, including the United States’ influence. Read More

Calling the notion of an immense wall between Mexico and the United States “nonsense,” a Vanderbilt professor in his new book makes the case for open borders between the two countries. Read More