Election Night 2012 in Robertson Hall

Nov. 9, 2012

CSDP and the Department of Politics jointly sponsored an Election Night returns-watching event in Robertson Hall, featuring commentary by Princeton University experts Nolan McCarty (Chair, Dept of Politics, Susan Dod Brown Professor of Politics and Public Affairs);  Marc Meredith (CSDP Visiting Scholar and University of Pennsylvania);  Markus Prior (Associate Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Co-Director, CSDP); Evan Thomas (Ferris Professor of Journalism and former Assistant Managing Editor, Newsweek);  Julian Zelizer (Professor of History and Public Affairs).

Attended by nearly 200 faculty, staff, and students, the community kept an eye on the results while discussing predictions and context with each other and with the expert commentators. Early in the evening, Marc Meredith drew on his experience behind the scenes at TV network election headquarters to predict correctly that the election would be called for President Obama just after 11:00pm. The Woodrow Wilson Political Network (WWPN, an organization of MPA graduate students) fed the special twitter feed created for the evening (#CSDP2012).