Election 2020: The state of the race and crisis elections

Yamiche Alcindor is the White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour and a contributor for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing on shows such as Morning Joe, Andrea Mitchell Reports, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. Previously, Alcindor worked as a national political reporter for The New York Times where she covered the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as well as Congress. Before joining the Times, she was a national breaking news reporter for USA Today, covering stories including the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. and the police related protests in Ferguson, Mo. and Baltimore, Md. 

Larry J. Sabato is a New York Times best-selling author, has won three Emmys, and is recognized as one of the nation’s most respected political analysts. He appears multiple times a week on national and international TV, including FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and CNN International. A Rhodes Scholar, Sabato is the founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and has had visiting appointments at Oxford and Cambridge universities in England. Sabato is the author or editor of two dozen books on American politics the latest of which is The Kennedy Half Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy. He has taught more than 20,000 students in his 40-year career, and the University of Virginia has given him its highest honor, The Thomas Jefferson Award.

Jennifer Lawless is a Miller Center faculty senior fellow and the Commonwealth 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.

David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, at Stanford University. Kennedy's scholarship is notable for its integration of economic and cultural analysis with social and political history. His 1970 book, Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, embraced the medical, legal, political, and religious dimensions of the subject and helped to pioneer the emerging field of women's history. Over Here: The First World War and American Society (1980) used the history of American involvement in World War I to analyze the American political system, economy, and culture in the early twentieth century. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War (1999) recounts the history of the United States in the two great crises of the Great Depression and World War II.

Margaret O’Mara is the Howard and Frances Keller Endowed Professor at the University of Washington. She specializes in the political, economic, and metropolitan history of the modern United States. She previously taught at Stanford University and has held positions in the US Department of Health and Human Services and the White House. O'Mara is a former Miller Center National Fellow and the author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (Penguin Press, 2019); Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century; and Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley. 

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.