In the media: UCLA faculty help unpack 2024 elections

During Election Day and in the days following, media have cited UCLA research and turned to UCLA faculty for expert insight on a range of election-related topics. A roundup of their insights follows; check back for updates throughout the week.

For daily summaries of UCLA faculty comments in local, national and international media, visit UCLA In the News.

Lara Trump touts changes to election process after inauguration
Richard Hasen, professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law
Newsweek (Nov. 7)

Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and wife of Donald Trump's son Eric, has said that, after her father-in-law's inauguration, the Republican-controlled government should look into changing the U.S. election process … While the details of this potential change to the U.S. electoral process are thin, the suggestion of the RNC co-chair seems to confirm many experts' fears that Donald Trump's return to the White House might significantly transform American democracy…

"Congress has broad powers to regulate congressional elections in Article I, section 4, [of the U.S. Constitution]" Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Newsweek. "In my experience, state and local election officials strongly resist attempts to centralize any election administration powers in the federal government," he added. "Usually it is Republicans who strongly resist federalization of elections. So this will be interesting to watch if it happens."

Donald Trump's victory was resounding. His second term will be, too
Lynn Vavreck, UCLA's Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics and Public Policy
The Economist (Nov. 7)

Democrats who are tempted to explain away Ms. Harris's defeat as part of a global wave of anti-incumbency may be missing something more fundamental. In 2016, when Mr. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, Democrats dismissed the result as an electoral-college aberration fuelled in part by racism, sexism and Russian disinformation. But this year, with Mr Trump winning the popular vote with the backing of a multiracial, working-class coalition, such arguments are harder to sustain.

"People scratch their heads, like, 'Oh, these Latino men, these Black men, why are they moving to Trump?' And the answer is, they're conservative," says Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles. The Democratic turn in recent years towards left-wing identity politics, with talk of decriminalising illegal immigration, defunding the police and championing critical race theory, did not endear them to minorities, as intended. Even though Democrats like Ms. Harris had recanted such views and begun to ape Mr. Trump's approach to crime, trade and immigration, they failed to stanch their losses among Black and Hispanic men and unionised workers.

What Trump's win means for the world's most pressing problems
Researchers at the UCLA's North American Integration and Development Center
Washington Post (Nov. 6)

As polls showed voters broadly disapproving of the Biden administration's handling of the border with Mexico, securing it was central to Trump's campaign … Near the top of the Trump campaign's agenda is a promise to "carry out the largest deportation operation in American history." U.S. authorities lack the capacity to round up and deport millions of immigrants, but Trump said he'll use National Guard troops.

The United States and Mexico, in particular, could feel "devastating effects" as a result of massive deportations, according to a paper written in part by researchers at the North American Integration and Development Center at the University of California at Los Angeles. The paper notes the two countries are "highly interdependent through dense migration, remittance and trade relations."

What's at stake for Mexico in a second Trump presidency?
Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor of Chicana/o and Central American Studies and founding director of the UCLA North American Integration and Development Center
New York Times (Nov. 6)

While a mass deportation program would face legal and logistical challenges, Raúl Hinojosa, director of U.C.L.A.'s North American Integration and Development Center, said that there are growing concerns about the effect that the such deportations could have on Mexico. If Mexican migrants are sent home, much of the money they send back to Mexico - $63 billion in 2023 - would plummet, depleting Mexico's economy of one of its most important sources of income, Mr. Hinojosa said.

L.A. voters pick Hochman as D.A., want to tax themselves to fight homelessness
Jim Newton, lecturer and founding editor in chief of UCLA Blueprint magazine
KCRW 89.9-FM's "Press Play" (Nov. 6)

I think it's fair to say that [district attorneys] are part of setting a tone for a region or a state or a county in terms of crime. But the fact is that charging decisions and prosecutions really are not directly related to crime. We're about to have a new police chief in Jim McDonnell. I think it's fair to hold Jim McDonnell responsible for crime in the city of L.A. and trends that way, but I think Hochman did a good job of trying to grab on to that issue. But I'm not sure that I'm really persuaded that D.A.'s actually are that influential in setting the level of crime up or down.

Donald Trump flipped Pennsylvania red partly by shrinking Democratic margins in Philly, suburbs
UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute
Philly Voice (Nov. 6)

In the final weeks before this year's election, a statewide poll from Equis Research found that Harris led Trump among Latinos by 55% to 36% - trailing Biden's 61% performance in 2020 and Clinton's 66% in 2016. Democrats had been counting on the state's large Puerto Rican population to remain a bulwark against Trump's gains, but the growth of the state's broader Latino population gave Republicans new supporters to cut into margins from past elections. Pennsylvania has an estimated population of about 579,000 Latino voters, making up about 6% of eligible voters. The growth of Latino voters also is outpacing the growth of Pennsylvania's non-Latino voting population, according to UCLA's Latino Policy & Politics Institute.

What does a Donald Trump presidency mean for LGBTQ+ rights?
Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law
Context (Nov. 6)

Trump has also vowed to "cut the left-wing gender programs" from the military and remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucrats from universities.

A 2024 study from UCLA's Williams Institute into the impact of anti-DEI legislation on LGBTQ+ faculty members at universities found such policies negatively impacted their teaching, research, relationship with students, and health.

How to use election outcome to teach about regulating emotions
Center for the Developing Adolescent at UCLA
K-12 Dive (Nov. 6)

While polarizing political issues can inflame tempers and raise stress levels, some say elections also offer opportunities to help students connect with peers and develop their identities and self agency - even if most of them are too young to vote.

Adults can proactively talk to youth about the potential for strong feelings regarding election outcomes - and acknowledge and empathize with their emotions, suggests an Oct. 28 paper from the Center for the Developing Adolescent at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Your guide to the status of LGBTQ+ issues on the ballot after Election Day
Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law
Yahoo! News (Nov. 6)

Same-sex marriage has been legal in all 50 states for nearly a decade, ever since the Supreme Court struck down all state bans in its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision. But if we've learned anything from the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in June 2022, in which the high court's conservative majority overturned 50 years of reproductive rights precedent - a decision president-elect Donald Trump bragged about - it's that Supreme Court rulings are not set in stone.

About 80% of same-sex married couples are worried that SCOTUS will overturn the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, according to a June report from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Harris or Trump? A lot at stake for California students
John Rogers, professor of education and director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access
EdSource (Nov. 5)

Conservative groups leveraged parental angst over Covid-19 school closures and masking policies to ignite a "parents' rights" movement that has since pushed back against educational policies on gender identity and racial equity, which Trump has vowed to eliminate. Some school board meetings have been so incendiary that school districts have had to pay for additional security to keep unruly audiences in order. Some think a Trump victory will further embolden far-right conservative activists.

"I think that a Trump victory will lead some on the right to take the message that these sorts of cultural attacks that have been playing out across the United States, and across California in the last couple of years, are an effective strategy for mobilizing the base and for energizing an electorate," John Rogers, director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, told EdSource.

On the influence of religious faith in the election
Octavio Pescador, research associate and co-founder of the Paulo Freire Institute at the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies
EFE (Nov. 5)

Octavio Pescador at the University of California Los Angeles explained to EFE that among Latinos, voting based on religion has been changing in recent decades. "Because it is a Catholic majority, Latinos were always related to Democrats when talking about religion, but since the 1980s, more evangelical immigrants began to arrive, who have established their churches and support conservatism more," explains the professor. (Translated from Spanish.)

Election lawsuits are happening more often. These are the flashpoints
Richard Hasen, professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law
Barron's (Nov. 5)

"We are far from the only country that has polarized politics," says Richard Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But we are really the only country among modern democracies that fights so much over our voting rules."

"If it's a game of inches, they are looking to score, whatever advantage they can," Hasen says.

The U.S.'s federalist system means national elections are conducted under rules set by more than 10,000 jurisdictions. Mix that decentralization with today's polarized, paranoid politics, and America is a land of opportunity for election lawyers.

Could this presidential election be decided by the Supreme Court?
Richard Hasen, professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law
New York Times (Nov. 5)

The Supreme Court has generally tried to stay out of political and electoral fights, and most election-related litigation will remain in the lower courts. But once a case is in the court system, it becomes possible that the Supreme Court chooses to take it up.To do so, the court would need to determine that it had jurisdiction over the issue and that a candidate was bringing forward a legitimate legal challenge, such as how certain classes of ballots should be treated. This is a high bar to overcome.

"If there are no real good theories as to why there was some major flaw in how an election was run, then I really don't see a pathway to litigating from being behind in an election to being a winner," said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

Oakland and Berkeley youth get ready to vote for the first time
UCLA's Laura Wray-Lake, Christopher Wegemer, Ryo Sato, Leslie Ortiz and Amy Wong
KQED (Nov. 5)

A recent study from the University of California, Los Angeles, found it's easier to initiate voting habits in high schoolers before barriers such as work and moving to new places separate them from civic institutions. Another 2016 study found that people who start voting regularly early in life are more likely to vote consistently throughout their lives.

Tags: Election 2024 | elections | politics | race and ethnicity | gender | California | Los Angeles | nation