Election 2024 and the future of the GOP

Mary Kate Cary served as a White House speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to early 1992, authoring more than 100 of his presidential addresses. She also served as senior writer for communications for the 1988 Bush-Quayle presidential campaign. Today, Cary writes for a variety of national political, corporate, and nonprofit leaders. Her assignments have included State of the Union responses, Republican National Convention addresses, and TED talks. She served as founding managing editor of the daily political news service The Hotline, as a staffer at ABC News’ This Week with David Brinkley, and as a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. She is a former Miller Center practitioner senior fellow.

Barbara Comstock, a senior advisor with Baker Donelson, is active in areas of technology, cybersecurity, national security and space, and congressional investigations. She was elected to Congress in 2014 and served two terms representing Virginia's 10th Congressional District, making her the first woman elected to that seat. She was named one of the "Top Ten Most Effective Lawmakers" in the 115th Congress by the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint effort of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. Her achievements include passing legislation to promote women and disadvantaged populations in STEM, as well as expanding research in the technology space.

Ron Christie is a Miller Center practitioner senior fellow and founder and CEO of Christie Strategies LLC, a full-service communications and issues management firm in Washington, D.C. He was the special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy assistant to Vice President Richard Cheney for domestic policy. Christie is also the author of three books: Blackwards: How Black Leadership is Returning America to the Days of Separate But Equal, Acting White: The Birth and Death of a Racial Slur, and Black in the White House. Christie served as a resident fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics at Harvard University and as an inaugural resident fellow at the University of Southern California Center for the Political Future.

William J. Antholis has served as director and CEO of UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across the University of Virginia to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public. Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014, working directly with Brookings's president and vice presidents. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global (2013) and co-author (with Strobe Talbott) of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (2010). He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade.