election

Honorary Advisory Board Member: Dr. Frank Luntz

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[Frank shows off the replica Oval Office he built in his home to the Hollywood Reporter.]

[Frank shows off the replica Oval Office he built in his home to the Hollywood Reporter.]

Sir David Frost called him “The Nostradamus of pollsters,” while Time magazine named him one of “50 of America’s most promising leaders aged 40 and under,” and Newsweek magazine identified him as No. 24 on their American Power Elite survey. He finished 87th in a Time magazine global poll of the “most influential people in the world.”  Yes, we’re talking about Frank Luntz, one of the most highly regarded communication professionals in America today. 

Widely considered a messaging master, Luntz is probably best known for his work conducting and analyzing focus groups, polls, surveys, and dial sessions, which he used to create his lists of “words to “use” and “words to lose” in political messaging. Thanks to his experience with the voting public, he won The Washington Post’s coveted “Crystal Ball” award for being the most accurate pundit. 


He has served as an election consultant and political pundit in more than two dozen countries, and his focus groups have become so influential that, following the PBS presidential debate, Barack Obama declared, “When Frank Luntz invites you to talk to his focus group, you talk to his focus group.” 

[Frank conducting a focus group during the 2016 Presidential election]

[Frank conducting a focus group during the 2016 Presidential election]


Media outlets routinely turn to Luntz for to understand the hopes and fears of Americans. His “instant response” focus group technique has been profiled on many shows, including 60 Minutes, and PBS’s Frontline. He has been a guest on virtually every talk show in America, including multiple appearances on Meet the Press, Nightline, The Today Show, Face the Nation, and Bill Maher. For more than a decade, Luntz was the “Focus Group Czar” for Fox News. 


One of four “Top Research Minds”...”the hottest pollster”... “pollster extraordinaire”...”the person you turn to for the truth”


Luntz is renowned for his ability to understand, explain, and communicate with the American public, particularly for his talent at developing effective talking points and messaging crafted to turn public opinion. From coining the phrase “tax relief” to emphasising positive terms like “energy efficiency’ over negative ones like “energy conservation” he has affected many political and policy issues by reframing the debate in terms that appeal to voters and the general public.

[Frank runs a focus group on 60 Minutes in 2016]

[Frank runs a focus group on 60 Minutes in 2016]

[Frank runs a socially distanced focus group, discussing the Presidential debate in 2020]

[Frank runs a socially distanced focus group, discussing the Presidential debate in 2020]

The increasingly divisive political atmosphere in recent years has inspired a change of heart in Luntz, who has moved away from partisan identification.

In 2019, he offered his messaging services to aid the cause for climate action, openly admitting that he considers his early position on climate change wrong. He promised to help the Democrats on the Senate climate committee, on the condition that they committed to nonpartisan solutions.  

“It doesn’t matter what you say, it only matters what people hear.” - Frank Luntz

[Frank runs a focus group with Muslim Americans for CBS This Morning]

[Frank runs a focus group with Muslim Americans for CBS This Morning]

Luntz earned distinction from an early age.  He was awarded the Thouron Fellowship and received his doctorate from Oxford University at the age of 25, after which he was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He also taught courses at Harvard University and George Washington University. Since 2018, he has taught two courses a year at NYU Abu Dhabi, and in 2021 is visiting professor for USC. 

In both 2011 and 2015, Luntz was the only non-journalist invited to host a debate of the GOP presidential contenders.  He also served for five years as a news analyst for CBS News, focusing on corporate and business communications, moving to ABC News in 2017.  He was a consultant to the NBC hit show The West Wing as well as the popular CBS drama Bull.    

[Frank runs a focus group with Muslim Americans for CBS This Morning]

[Frank runs a focus group with Muslim Americans for CBS This Morning]

Luntz is the author of three New York Times best sellers. Words that Work: It’s Not What You Say it’s What People Hear, explores the art and science of language creation.  His second book, What Americans Really Want … Really, addresses the private hopes, dreams and fears of the American people; it reached No. 18 on the bestseller list.  His most recent book, WIN, discusses how to use language to succeed in different aspects of everyday life, it reached No. 3 on The New York Times Business Best Seller List in its first month in print.  He has written about the power of language for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, The Times of London, The Washington Post, and Time.  

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Charlie Cook

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Charlie Cook

Political Analyst and Election Forecastor

Charlie Cook is considered one of the nation’s leading authorities on American politics and U.S. elections. He is the editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report which serves as one of the leading sites and informational platforms for election predictions and results in the United States. He is also a political analyst for NBC News and National Journal.

Since the 1984 US presidential election, Cook has provided election night commentary for various television networks. The Wall Street Journal has referred to Cook as “the Picasso of election analysis” and the Washington Post has called him "perhaps the best non-partisan tracker of Congressional races.”

In 2010, Charlie was the co-recipient of the American Political Science Association’s prestigious Carey McWilliams award to honor “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics."

Charlie Cook has participated in The 2020 Post Election Round Up with Al Franken, Rick Wilson, and Jonathan Capehart on November 10, 2020. He also participated in The White Working-Class Political Revolution with David Kuhn, Jim Webb, and moderator Clyde Haberman on January 7, 2021. Kuhn, Webb, Cook, and Haberman discussed how the white working-class was driven away from the Democratic party and towards Republicans and how that schism continues to drive class conflict and political polarization today. The discussion also broached the Democrats inability to make inroads with this demographic and if white working-class voters support Republicans in spite of their own policy preferences.



Rachel Bitecofer, PhD.

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Rachel Bitecofer

Rachel Bitecofer is an ace election forecaster and the founder of The Cycle a digital platform for news and politics. Forecaster, election analyst, pollster, and all-around data girl, Dr. Bitecofer is one of the most accurate, and exciting, experts in today's political arena. Her research has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, and other major media outlets.

Click here to go to The Cycle

Bitecofer was nationally recognized for predicting the results of the 2018 United States midterm elections more closely than most other forecasters. She first predicted that Democrats would pick up 42 seats in the House of Representatives in September 2018, revising her forecast to 45 seats in November,  just days before the election even as others were revising their estimates downwards. Democrats ultimately gained 41 seats in the House election, making her prediction one of the most accurate of that cycle. However, there were some errors in her Senate election forecast, where she incorrectly predicted that Democrat Bill Nelson would win reelection in Florida.

Dubbed the Election Whisperer, Bitecofer’s expertise in analysis and prediction has everyone coming to her for the inside scoop on what to expect before the election. Check out her interview on Real Time with Bill Maher where they discuss how she is able to make such accurate predictions and doing so in a hyper-polarized climate.

Bitecofer is also an author of The Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Election. This book explains the 2016 presidential election through a strategic focus. In the primaries both parties faced challenges from insurgent outsiders riding waves of populist fervor in the electorate, but only the Democrats were able to steer the nomination into the hands of their establishment favorite.

Dr. Bitecofer is famous for her main thesis that modern elections are not decided by the swing vote, but rather negative partisanship, which prioritizes defeating the other side over any specific policy objective. Under her theory, shifts in voter turnout decide everything, and the "swing" mainly comes from whether voters decide to vote at all rather than deciding who to vote for.

Rachel Bitecofer participated in Recap: Final Presidential Debate Panel on October 23, 2020. Bitecofer, Schoen and McFadden help unpacked what happened during the final Presidential debate.




Martin O’Malley

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Martin O’Malley

Attorney, 61st Governor of Maryland

Martin O’Malley has served as the Governor of Maryland, Mayor of Baltimore, and a city councilor.

In 1999, O’Malley ran for Mayor of Baltimore. Widely considered an underdog candidate, O’Malley campaigned on the promise of reducing crime, improving schools, and rebuilding broken communities. He went on to earn 90 percent of the vote. In 2007, O’Malley was elected as Governor of Maryland. Under his leadership, Maryland made sweeping investments in public safety, college education, affordable healthcare, and economic growth. The state recovered 100 percent of the jobs lost during the national recession, and was one of only seven states to maintain a AAA bond rating. Recognizing the threat that climate change posed to Maryland’s coastal communities, O’Malley took action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, invest in renewable energy, and grow green jobs. He signed marriage equality into law, abolished the death penalty, and passed the DREAM Act to expand the opportunity of a college education to more local students.

In 2015, O’Malley left office. In 2016, he ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Twitter: @MartinOMalley

Robert Shrum

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robert Shrum

Political advisor

Robert Shrum has been a senior adviser to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the British Labour Party. In addition to being the chief strategist for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, Shrum has advised thirty winning U.S. Senate campaigns; eight winning campaigns for governor; mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities; and the Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Shrum’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate, and other publications.

The author of No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner (Simon and Schuster), he is currently a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. He is the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and the Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics at the University of Southern California, where he is a Professor of the Practice of Political Science in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Shrum spoke at The Common Good’s Elections 2012 Forecast – Mehlman, Shrum, Wolffe – November 17, 2011.

Twitter: @BobShrum