As voters across the country go to the polls, Notre Dame professors within the political science department have expressed their thoughts on this historic election season in interviews with The Observer.
Professor Geoffrey Layman, who teaches the “Election 2024” course and chairs the Department of Political Science at Notre Dame, pointed to President Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race as a particularly historic aspect of the election cycle.
“We’ve never had a situation where a candidate who had essentially won his party’s nomination dropped out,” Layman said. “It’s this huge thing.”
Layman did, however, note that there were important similarities with previous elections — particularly Trump’s presence as head of the Republican Party.
“But then, of course … it’s kind of the same race as we had in 2020, which was kind of the same race we had in 2016,” Layman said. “Same Republican candidate. So huge differences, but also a lot of similarities.”
Defining issues of the two campaigns was a notable topic as well. In an interview with The Observer, Professor David Campbell — director of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative and whose research focuses on civic and political engagement — remarked on the significant differences in subject matter emphasized by the two candidates.
“If you listen to one campaign versus the other campaign, you would think that they are living in different worlds,” Campbell said. “The issues that are emphasized by the Trump campaign are very different than the issues emphasized by the Harris campaign.”
Although it is not unusual for campaigns to focus on their strengths, Campbell noted that the dynamic had changed this election cycle.
“If you only listened to Republicans, you would think that this election was only about immigration,” Campbell said. “And if you listen to the Harris campaign, you might think that this election was only about maybe abortion rights, maybe a little bit more than that.”
Notre Dame professors also highlighted the importance of down-ballot congressional races. Professor Jeff Harden, who specializes in American politics and political methodology, noted the difficulties in accomplishing policy goals when the opposing party controls Congress but stressed that even a unified government presents challenges for the majority party.
“In recent times when the president’s party has held one or more chambers of Congress, internal divisions within parties have become more apparent,” Harden wrote in an email to The Observer. “Additionally, we have seen that the minority party can still wield considerable influence and extract policy concessions with threats to hold up the process.”
In interviews with The Observer, professors frequently discussed the long-term trends underscored by the 2024 election cycle. Professor Campbell, in particular, voiced concerns about the resilience of America’s institutions.
“I think that what we have seen … is that support for some of the fundamental norms that we had taken for granted in American democracy … are a lot weaker than we thought,” Campbell said. “It does suggest that the country would have a long way to go to rebuild the sort of trust in the very institutions of government that are needed for a democracy to flourish.”
Professor Campbell concluded with a crucial message for young people observing today’s politics, especially regarding the intensified rhetoric that has marked recent years.
“I do worry [for] today’s college students because they are witnessing politics today and … may think that what we’re experiencing now is normal,” Campbell said. “I just want to emphasize a lot of what we have seen in the last eight years is not the norm.”
