Experts in the News | Miller Center

Decoding the U.S. 2020 election: a new divide in the "swing" opposition

Guian McKee, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia (UVA's Miller Center) who studies electoral politics in the United States, found that behind the polarized public opinion, the United States originally supported the “red and blue” of the Democratic Party, the Central and the South’s Republican Party. The competitive landscape is being replaced by the political divide between the city and the countryside, and it has a tendency to deepen.

Guian McKee

Trump's refusal to concede

"In 2008 when I ran Obama's transition, the networks called the election at 11pm. Within 2 hours, I received this letter from the GSA ascertaining that Senator Obama was the President-Elect," said Chris Lu.

Chris Lu

‘He’s psychologically incapable of processing this loss’: Mary Trump and government insiders worry about Trump’s ‘smash and grab’ on his way out of office

University of Virginia Miller Center Senior Fellow Chris Lu, a former Deputy Labor Secretary who served as the executive director of the 2008-2009 Obama-Biden transition effort, said he did not know if it was possible to quantify the damage to national security that could result from a delayed transition process. “In 78 days, there's not enough time to plan for the takeover of the largest, most powerful organisation in the world. That’s why you start early,” Lu said. “There’s only so much work you can do behind the scenes before election day. All of this matters, and people should be concerned about it.”

Chris Lu

Five big challenges for the Biden foreign policy team

At the same time, Iran is now significantly out of compliance with the nuclear deal and, if anything, has behaved even more aggressively on non-nuclear matters, as former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Never Trumper Eric S. Edelman explained.

Eric Edelman

Biden transition team leader: Delay endangers U.S. national, homeland security

“This transition period, in general, always is a tenuous time,” says Biden transition team leader Chris Lu. “The 9/11 Commission found in 2000 that the delay in the Bush team getting their people into national security positions created a vulnerability.”

Chris Lu

Can Biden Get Started? What Influence He Can Wield As He Prepares To Take The Reins

It will be “very hard” for Biden to have much sway over policy while not in power, Barbara Perry, presidential studies director at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, told Forbes, but the Democrat can send signals about important policy decisions, and could hold growing symbolic influence as the soon-to-be leader of the world’s most powerful country.

Barbara Perry