and WDET’s Stephen Henderson
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2024 | 6 PM
Rackham Auditorium
915 E Washington St
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Watch the video recording.
A Special Election Event
Join Wallace House and the Institute for Social Research for a live conversation driven by journalism and social science in the run-up to the presidential election. Hear special guests Bret Stephens and Lydia Polgreen of The New York Times, María Elena Salinas of ABC News, and Vincent Hutchings of U-M Center for Political Studies in conversation with veteran Michigan journalist Stephen Henderson. As part of the University of Michigan’s Year of Democracy, Civic Empowerment, and Global Engagement initiative, this special event will provide insights on critical issues shaping the 2024 election and social science research on the American voting public.
Drawing on findings from the 75-year-long American National Election Studies, the discussion will explore the dramatic rise of political polarization, the significant decline in public trust in government — which has dropped from 80% in the 1950s to just 20% today — and other key factors influencing voter behavior. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear diverse perspectives on the forces shaping the upcoming election.
About the Speakers
Vincent Hutchings is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan and an expert in public opinion, elections, voting behavior and African American politics. He was one of the principal investigators for the American National Election Studies (ANES) from 2010 to 2017. The ANES is the premier academic survey of American voting, public opinion, and political participation. The ANES was launched at the University of Michigan during the 1948 presidential election and has collected the highest quality national survey data, with questions dating as far back as the 1950s and 1960s, in every presidential election since then.
Lydia Polgreen is an opinion columnist at The New York Times and a co-host of the “Matter of Opinion” podcast. Previously, she served as managing director of Gimlet, a podcast studio at Spotify, and as editor-in-chief of HuffPost, leading a team of hundreds of journalists publishing 16 editions across the globe in nine languages. Her leadership at HuffPost followed a 15-year career at The New York Times that included roles as associate masthead editor, deputy international editor, South Africa bureau chief, a correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau. Before joining The Times, Polgreen was a staff writer for the Orlando Sentinel and the Albany Times Union. She received the 2009 Livingston Award for international reporting for her series, “The Spoils,” an account of how mineral wealth brought misery and exploitation to much of Africa.
María Elena Salinas is a contributor to ABC News. For more than 30 years, she served as co-anchor of Univision Network’s flagship daily newscast, “Noticiero Univision,” and for 18 years she was the co-host and correspondent for the network’s weekly newsmagazine, “Aquí y Ahora.” Called the “Voice of Hispanic America” by The New York Times, Salinas is the most recognized Hispanic female journalist in the United States. Most recently, Salinas served as a contributor for CBS News, where she reported across platforms and on coverage of the 2020 presidential election. She also anchored the award-winning documentary, “Pandemia: Latinos in Crisis,” which looked at how COVID-19 has affected the Latinx community.
Bret Stephens is an opinion columnist for The New York Times, writing about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. He also has a weekly published conversation on current affairs with his colleague, Gail Collins. Previously, he was the foreign affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, a member of the Journal’s editorial board and the deputy editor of the editorial page, responsible for international opinion. Stephens was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his column “Global View,” receiving the honor for “his incisive columns on American foreign policy and domestic politics, often enlivened by a contrarian twist.”
About the moderator
Stephen Henderson hosts the daily radio show “Created Equal” on WDET, Detroit’s public radio station, and is the longtime host of “American Black Journal” and a regular contributor to “One Detroit” on Detroit PBS. Previously, he was the editorial page editor and a columnist for the Detroit Free Press. He has also worked for the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun and spent four years covering the Supreme Court for Knight Ridder’s Washington Bureau. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and a former editorial page editor of The Michigan Daily, the school’s 125-year-old daily student newspaper.