The 2026 Mid-Term U.S. Elections:
American Democracy on the Ballot?
Wednesday, November 18, 2026 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Details To Follow
Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where she has taught for more than three decades.
Several challenges arose during the 2026 US election campaign, including issues of electoral integrity following legal battles over gerrymandering, voter registration, and mail-in ballots, divisions between progressives and moderates within the Democratic Party, and the future direction of the Republican Party in the 2028 presidential contests. This talk will present an analysis of the campaign, voting behavior, and results in the light of longer-term trends in US elections, the implications of the outcome for the US Congress, and, in particular, whether American democracy is on the ballot.
She is the author of Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism (2019 CUP), one of the most widely cited books on the topic.