America’s electoral future: Where are the parties headed?

William Jelani Cobb is the Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School. He has contributed to the New Yorker since 2012, becoming a staff writer in 2015. He is the recipient of the 2015 Sidney Hillman Award for Opinion and Analysis writing and writes frequently about race, politics, history, and culture. Cobb was previously associate professor of history and director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut where he specialized in post-Civil War African American history, 20th century American politics, and the history of the Cold War. He is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress as well as To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic.

Jennifer Lawless is a Miller Center faculty senior fellow and the Lenore Reeves and George Spicer Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. Prior to joining the UVA faculty, she was a professor of government at American University and the director of the Women & Politics Institute. Before that, she was an assistant and then associate professor at Brown University. Lawless’ research focuses on political ambition, campaigns and elections, and media and politics. She is the author or co-author of six books, including Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era (with Danny Hayes) and It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (with Richard L. Fox). Her research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, has appeared in numerous academic journals, and is regularly cited in the popular press.

Sidney M. Milkis is the Miller Center’s White Burkett Miller Professor of Governance and Foreign Affairs, Cavaliers' Distinguished Teaching Professor, and UVA professor of politics. His research focuses on the American presidency, political parties and elections, social movements, and American political development. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate students, he regularly gives public lectures on American politics and participates in programs for international scholars and high school teachers that probe the deep historical roots of contemporary developments in the United States. His many books include the recently published Rivalry and Reform: Presidents, Social Movements, and the Transformation of American Politics.