With election winding down, KU experts can discuss candidates, issues

LAWRENCE —As one of the most unexpected presidential campaign matchups in decades comes to a close, University of Kansas political experts are available to discuss issues surrounding the Nov. 8 election.

Aside from the presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Republican outsider Donald Trump, political scientists and cultural scholars can discuss each party's prospects for controlling Congress, races in the Kansas Legislature and specific issues that have received attention from voters.

Patrick Miller, assistant professor of political science, studies American politics and attitudes of partisanship, among other topics, and he has served as lead author on studies about gender and compromise and partisan rivalry. Miller monitors Kansas and national polling made available and tweets analysis at Twitter.com/pmiller1693. Miller is also available to comment on elections and campaign finance, issues, public opinion and surveys, media and politics, and race and politics.

Burdett Loomis, professor of political science, has written extensively on Congress and legislatures as well as on interest groups and Kansas politics. He is currently working on the seventh edition of The Contemporary Congress and a book on Kansas politics between 1960 and the present.

Christina Bejarano, associate professor of political science, is available to talk about U.S. politics. Her work focuses on women and Latinos in U.S. electoral politics, both their voting trends and political candidates. She has written two books: "The Latina Advantage: Gender, Race and Political Success" and "The Latino Gender Gap in U.S. Politics."

Alesha Doan, associate professor of political science and in the School of Public Affairs and Administration, can address political issues nationally and in Kansas related to women, including topics of abortion and reproductive policy.

Mark Joslyn, professor of political science, can discuss issues or partisanship and political attitudes. He is co-author of several studies on what influences voters' attitudes, including level of education and understanding of genetics. He is currently working on research that examines voting patterns of U.S. gun owners and non-gun owners.

Mariya Omelicheva, associate professor of political science, is available to discuss the potential influence of the election on U.S.-Russian foreign policy and U.S.-NATO relations. Omelicheva's research focuses on international relations, security policy, state security, human rights and Russian foreign policy. She has written several recent studies that examine the paradigm of Russia's foreign policy decisions.

Don Haider-Markel, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, can speak about national political trends and races and potential policy implications. His research includes American politics and public policy that deals with a number of issues, including criminal justice, terrorism and extremist groups, and LGBT politics.

Kim Warren, associate professor of history and women, gender and sexuality studies, can discuss the historical significance of Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman to win a major party's nomination for president. Warren's broad research interests include women's history, citizenship and American identity, race and gender relations, civil rights, suffrage movements and the history of gender and race in African-American and Native American education.

David Farber, Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor in the Department of History, can discuss the history of modern conservatism, political leadership, democratic practices, U.S. and Iran relations, and social change movements, particularly how those of the 1960s and 1970s relate to events of today. Farber has lectured on American politics and democracy in China, Indonesia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Russia, and he worked on Capitol Hill in the 1980s as well as winning scholarly awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Kennedy and Hoover libraries and the Aspen Foundation, among others. He currently serves as a consultant to the Nixon Library.

To arrange an interview with Miller, Loomis, Bejarano, Doan, Joslyn, Haider-Markel, Warren or Farber, contact George Diepenbrock at 785-864-8853 or gdiepenbrock@ku.edu.

Mark Johnson, lecturer in the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications, can discuss election law, campaign law, disputed election results, campaign finance and related topics. Johnson has taught courses on election law in the KU School of Law and now teaches courses on election and campaign law in the journalism school. In addition to serving as lead counsel in Kansas voting rights cases, Johnson holds a history degree from Yale University and a law degree from Harvard University, and he is a founder of the Kansas City office of Dentons US LLP, an international firm that represents telecommunications companies, wireless carriers and cable companies.

William B. Lacy, director of the Dole Institute of Politics, can discuss the election, campaigns of both candidates, campaign tactics, election outcomes and similar topics. Lacy has been director of the Dole Institute of Politics since 2004 and has played a major role in seven presidential campaigns, including senior roles in former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole’s 1988 and 1996 bids, Ronald Reagan’s 1980 and 1984 campaigns and George H.W. Bush’s 1988 and 1992 runs. He was also President Reagan’s White House political director. In 2007 he took a leave of absence from the Institute to manage the presidential campaign of former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn).

To arrange an interview with Johnson or Lacy, contact Mike Krings at 785-864-8860 or mkrings@ku.edu