Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service

02/04/2025

Georgetown was home to a live forum co-hosted by MSNBC featuring candidates for key leadership positions in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Jan. 30.

The event, co-hosted by Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) and MSNBC, is the last DNC officer candidate forum before committee members vote for new leadership on Feb. 1.

Candidates for DNC chair, vice chair, treasurer and other leadership positions in the Democratic Party made their cases to DNC members and answered questions from Georgetown students in Gaston Hall.

GU Politics Executive Director Mo Elleithee and MSNBC’s Luke Russert moderated the day-long forum, which also featured former GU Politics fellows and MSNBC anchors Jonathan Capehart, Jen Psaki, and Symone Sanders Townsend.

“As GU Politics commemorates our 10th anniversary in 2025, our programming this year is going to focus on conversations about the next decade of politics and public service,” said Elleithee. “What the future of the Democratic Party looks like is one of the great questions in politics today, so hosting this forum and giving our students the chance to hear from — and directly question — those who seek to lead the DNC was a no-brainer.”

The DNC event continues GU Politics’ longstanding tradition of inviting speakers from across the political spectrum to campus, such as former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and others.

GU Politics and Georgetown have also hosted events such as the “Road to 2024” at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a 2023 GOP presidential candidate series on national security and foreign policy in partnership with the Associated Press, a 2019 Climate Forum in partnership with MSNBC and a 2022 Washington DC Mayoral Debate.

See scenes from the daylong event in Gaston Hall.

01/07/2025

As we enter our 10th year, we are so excited to announce the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service Spring 2025 Fellows Class, our 20th class of fellows.

This semester’s class will bring decades of experience in politics, government, public policy and journalism to the Hilltop, and come from across the political spectrum.

Please join us in welcoming Tony Fabrizio, Quentin Fulks, Don Graves, Cecilia Kang, Meg Kinnard, and Heather Nauert!

As we enter our 10th year, we are excited to announce the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) Spring 2025 Fellows Class, our 20th class of fellows. This semester’s class will bring decades of experience in politics, government, public policy and journalism to the Hill...

10/16/2024

Next week, GU Politics will welcome EGOT-winning, critically acclaimed, multiplatnium musician John Legend, who will discuss his activism around social justice issues and pursue a call for students to know their power in and out of the voting booth.

“Know Your Power” is a GU Politics speaker series featuring barrier breakers from different industries who use their voice and platform to affect social change. A livestream will be offered for this event.

10/03/2024

Join us for an insightful conversation with Nikki Haley, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican presidential candidate. In this latest installment of GU Politics’ “Reflections on Running” series, Ambassador Haley will share her experiences running for president, including her decision to run, and what the process helped her discover about the nation, voters, the process — and herself.

09/16/2024

A Conversation with Mike Dubke, Symone Sanders Townsend and moderated by Jackie Mucinich.

08/26/2024

Let’s welcome Rodney Davis, Ashley Gunn, Alencia Johnson, Symone Sanders Townsend, Waleed Shahid and Rick Wiley to the Hilltop! We are gearing up for an exciting semester with our Fall 2024 Fellows and can’t wait for you to meet our new class in just a couple weeks.

Get to know them here!

Ahead of a new school year, we are excited to announce the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) Fall 2024 Fellows Class. This semester’s class will bring decades of experience in politics, government and public service to the Hilltop and Capitol Campus, and come from a...

08/26/2024

This semester is going to be a big one and we have a new class of Fellows to match.

This is the access you came to D.C. for and we’re here to deliver. Check out the Fall 2024 Class!

07/31/2024

We’re still not over our trip to the Republican National Convention two weeks ago! Our Hoyas got a behind-the-scenes look at all things campaign strategy, media, convention operation and more, but this was also a week about conversation. Throughout the week, students talked to delegates, journalists, operatives and professionals to gain a deeper understanding of a historic time in our country’s politics. We’re so proud of our Hoyas for bringing civility to all our discussions, being open to political opinions that are different from their own and asking thoughtful questions.

Read their reflections here: https://bit.ly/2024RNCReflections

In just a few weeks, we will take another cohort of students to the Democratic National Convention so make sure to stay tuned!

07/26/2024

This week, we welcomed a group of high school students in partnership with the School of Continuing Studies for U.S. Campaigns & Elections Academy!

All week, strategists, journalists, pollsters and campaign professionals taught students about campaign strategy, earned and paid media, field organizing and more! Students also got to take a trip downtown and take a tour of the US Capitol.

Their task at hand: design a successful voter targeting or ad campaign for Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) or former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) for the Michigan senate race.

After a week of hard work on their final projects, students presented a robust schedule, campaign strategy, TV and digital ads and their overall plan to connect with voters and get out the vote. GU Politics Executive Director Mo Elleithee pushed each group with his tough questions and shared his overall feedback with the group.

Students shared that the week opened their eyes to how intricate and data driven campaigns are, how strategic ad placements are, how much candidates’ time matters amongst many other takeaways.

We’re so proud of these students for not only putting together impressive presentations, but also for their curiosity and commitment to learn about this important part of the American political process.

07/22/2024

Our cohort continued their experience at the Republican National Convention last week with a podium tour last Wednesday! Ashley Gunn and Howard Kolins gave students a behind-the-scenes look at Fiserv Forum, explaining the process around selecting speakers, writing speeches and stage management.

Students later met with Chuck Todd, chief political analyst and former NBC Meet the Press moderator and Fall ‘19 GU Politics Fellow, former Governor of Kansas, Jeff Colyer (C’81, P’17) and incoming C-SPAN CEO Sam Feist. Finally, students headed to Fiserv Forum to hear from various speakers who discussed the theme “Make America Strong Again,” finishing off the night with a speech by vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.

On Thursday students headed to a rapid response press conference held by the then Biden Harris presidential campaign where Hoyas heard from the team on how the Democratic party is working to reframe the GOP’s narrative surrounding the 2024 election.

Students toured media row where they were able to see how different local and national outlets worked to cover the convention and even ran into AP reporter Meg Kinnard (SFS‘02), who moderated GU Politics’ GOP presidential candidate forum last fall. The cohort had a sit-down with Kate Sullivan (C'17), CNN embed for the Trump presidential campaign who spoke about traveling to every Trump rally and even shared her experience from Butler, Pennsylvania during the attempted assassination.

After a quick chat with the GU Politics DNC cohort, students headed to Fiserv forum for the last time on Thursday where the night culminated in a speech by Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Stay tuned for our coverage of the Democratic National Convention this August!

07/19/2024

This week, GU Politics is at the Republican National Convention with a cohort of students. After arriving on Sunday, we attended the first Welcome Party, where we ran into Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Ron Johnson.

On Monday, we got the opportunity to volunteer for either the RNC, Politico or the Boston Globe with GU Politics Spring ‘16 Fellow Jackie Kucinich. This opportunity pulled back the curtain on some of the media operations of the convention.

On Tuesday morning, we left our rooms at 4am to see a taping of CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt, featuring our very own Mo Elleithee and GU Politics Fall ‘17 Fellow Mike Dubke (and we were even live on CNN for a few seconds!). We then met with Reince Priebus, former Chair of the RNC and current chairman of the host committee. This was an interesting segway into our meeting with Richard Walters, a senior advisor to the RNC, who gave us the behind-the-scenes on how the convention is run. The two told us about how the RNC operates and fundraises about the dynamic between the host committee for the conference and the RNC itself.

GU Politics also continued its Road to 2024 conversations in partnership with Brunswick group featuring Chris LaCivita, a senior advisor for Trump 2024 and Lanhee Chen, Brunswick Partner. Students brought forth their questions on campaign strategy, the economy, polling and more!

Each day culminated in the convention hall watching the RNC speeches, which included Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy as well as elected officials and everyday Americans. We’ve been paying close attention to the daily campaign themes and enjoying comparing what we hear in our conversations and on the convention stage. Stay tuned for part 2!