Ron Elving
Ron Elving is Senior Editor and Correspondent on the Washington Desk for NPR News, where he is frequently heard as a news analyst and writes regularly for NPR.org.
He is also a professorial lecturer and Executive in Residence in the School of Public Affairs at American University, where he has also taught in the School of Communication. In 2016, he was honored with the University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching in an Adjunct Appointment. He has also taught at George Mason and Georgetown.
He was previously the political editor for USA Today and for Congressional Quarterly. He has been published by the Brookings Institution and the American Political Science Association. He has contributed chapters on Obama and the media and on the media role in Congress to the academic studies Obama in Office 2011, and Rivals for Power, 2013. Ron's earlier book, Conflict and Compromise: How Congress Makes the Law, was published by Simon & Schuster and is also a Touchstone paperback.
During his tenure as manager of NPR's Washington desk from 1999 to 2014, the desk's reporters were awarded every major recognition available in radio journalism, including the Dirksen Award for Congressional Reporting and the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In 2008, the American Political Science Association awarded NPR the Carey McWilliams Award "in recognition of a major contribution to the understanding of political science."
Ron came to Washington in 1984 as a Congressional Fellow with the American Political Science Association and worked for two years as a staff member in the House and Senate. Previously, he had been state capital bureau chief for The Milwaukee Journal.
He received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and master's degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of California – Berkeley.
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Where will the GOP turn in its hour of crisis? If the past is any guide, it will turn to the wellsprings of strength that have brought the party back from the brink before.
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The attack on the Capitol continues to cast a shadow over Congress as both a building and an institution, as it remains either the subject or subtext of most every political discussion in Washington.
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There is little precedent for a former president running again, let alone winning. But since when has the lack of precedent bothered Donald Trump?
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Trump joins a subset of former presidents who were denied a second term by the voters. For any public figure, that sort of hired-and-fired rejection might be purgatory. For Trump, it might be worse.
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The president spent weeks attacking the election results, but not until the insurrection at the Capitol — a symbol of liberty and self-determination — did calls for an early transfer of power begin.
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Vice President Pence is far from being the first vice president caught in an awkward position when presiding over the counting of electoral votes and being obligated to announce his own defeat.
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How is it that the Brits can have a newly elected prime minister meeting with the queen to form a new government within a day or two, but Americans need 10 or 11 weeks to install a new crew?
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President Trump's loss to Joe Biden has made it tough for Republicans to celebrate important wins down ballot, while Democrats have been stung by the failure to meet expectations of a blue tsunami.
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The concession has become an unofficial touch point in the process of American elections, especially when one party gives up the presidency, signaling a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power.
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In a week "unlike any other" featuring "the most important election of our lives," let us remember there will be events that are legitimately extraordinary. Actual records will in fact be broken.