Experts

Michael Nelson

Nonresident Faculty Senior Fellow

Fast Facts

  • Editor of American Presidential Elections book series
  • Expertise on political science, Richard Nixon

Areas Of Expertise

  • Governance
  • Elections
  • Federalism
  • Political Parties and Movements
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

Michael Nelson is the Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College. He has published multiple books, including Resilient America: Electing Nixon, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government (2014); The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776–2014, with Sidney Milkis (2015); The Presidency and the Political System, 10th ed. (2014); and The Elections of 2016 (2017). He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals such as the Journal of Politics and Political Science Quarterly and in periodicals such as Virginia Quarterly Review, the Claremont Review of Books, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Although most of his articles have been about American politics and government, he also has written about C. S. Lewis, Frank Sinatra, Charles Dickens, Garrison Keillor, football, and baseball. More than 50 of these articles have been reprinted in anthologies of political science, history, and English composition. He is editor of the American Presidential Elections book series for the University Press of Kansas and is currently writing a book about the 1992 election.

Michael Nelson News Feed

Political science professor Mike Nelson assesses the first year of the Trump presidency.
Michael Nelson C-SPAN
"We know about Roosevelt figuring out how to use radio as a leadership took, JFK on television, Trump certainly has innovated successfully in taking social media, Twitter in particular, as a way of getting his thoughts right into telephones and experience of the tens of millions of people who follow him,” Michael Nelson said.
Michael Nelson NBC29
Michael Nelson is interviewed about his new book, "Trump's First Year."
Michael Nelson WYPL
Michael Nelson is the Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College. He’s also a nonresident senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and editor of “Crucible: The President’s First Year” and author of “Trump’s First Year.”
Michael Nelson Wisconsin Public Radio
In “Trump’s First Year,” scholar Michael Nelson suggests that the president’s inexperience will render Trump painfully ineffective.
Michael Nelson The Washington Post
President Donald Trump has inspired great outrage among American liberals, as well as impassioned defenses from his core supporters. In Trump’s First Year, Michael Nelson, a distinguished conservative expert on the presidency, takes neither approach, offering dispassionate but trenchant critiques of Trump’s leadership during his first year in office.
Michael Nelson Chapter 16