Amidst an uptick in threats, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley confirms applying for Secret Service protection, citing multiple incidents including "swatting" attempts and protester disruptions at campaign events.The request for protection underscores growing concerns over political violence and safety amid the charged atmosphere of the presidential race.
Faculty experts at George Washington University are available to offer insight, analysis and commentary on growing concerns over political violence. If you would like to speak with an expert, please contact GW Media Relations Specialist Tayah Frye at [email protected].
Andrew Thompson is an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University. His research studies how racial demographic changes alter political perceptions and democratic commitments. Further, he explores how racial demographic changes motivate stronger support for anti-democratic practices among the American public. He shows that partisan considerations are central to understanding how Americans process information about the changing U.S. demographic landscape, and how supportive they are of anti-democratic policies.
Matt Dallek, a professor at GW’s Graduate School of Political Management, is a political historian with expertise in the intersection of social crises and political transformation, the evolution of the modern conservative movement, and liberalism and its critics. Along with four co-authored books, Dallek is the author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, which explores the history and influence of America’s right-wing activism.
Jon Lewis is a research fellow at the GW Program on Extremism. He studies homegrown violent extremism, with a specialization in the evolution of white supremacist and anti-government movements in the U.S. and federal responses to the threat.
Stefan McCabe is a Postdoctoral Associate at George Washington University's Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics, working in the Investigations Cluster and the Digital Democracy Cluster. His dissertation research focuses on developing methods for accurately measuring and describing online social behaviors, with a focus on linking digital trace data and administrative data. He holds a Ph.D. from Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute (2022) as well as a master's degree from George Mason University’s Department of Computational Social Science (2016).
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