Political scientists once theorized that roughly every thirty years, a major election shuffles each party's constituencies. But Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, disagrees. Groups tend to shift slowly over time, she says—not as a sea change or red/blue wave in one dramatic election. When it comes to the 2026 midterm elections in America, she offers a patient and unsentimental perspective: We are still hyper-partisan, and party realignment takes years, even decades. In this conversation with Mark Labberton, Gillespie comments on voter turnout research, racial authenticity in black politics, realignment and the 2026 midterms, and Christian nationalism and the gospel of grace. Episode Highlights "It takes years for a realignment to manifest. So in all honesty, I need another fifteen, twenty years' worth of data before we actually know that these shifts are happening." "You don't want to be so blinded by your hope that you can't actually properly discern what's happening in front of you." "I get to the major and minor prophets, I read them very, very differently now. … You see the corruption that they were speaking to and you recognize it in your own time." "I see it as a power grab. This is people who are trying to reclaim power, seize power, and then they want to do it with sort of the imprimatur of Jesus around it—but this isn't about Jesus, this is about their own self-aggrandizement." "You're trying to get people to conform to a particular way that, behind closed doors, you can't even live up to." "My responsibility is to not look to circumstances, to not look to people around me for my comfort and my hope, because if I did I would just despair, but to remember that Christ is calling me to abide in him." About Andra Gillespie Andra Gillespie is associate professor of political science and graduate faculty in sociology at Emory University, where she directs the James Weldon Johnson Institute. Her research focuses on the political leadership of the post–civil rights generation and race and voting behaviour. She is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America and Race and the Obama Administration; editor of Whose Black Politics?; and coauthor, with Shayla C. Nunnally, of An Introduction to African American Politics. A Yale PhD holder, she worked as an analyst for Democratic pollster Mark Mellman before joining Emory. Helpful Links and Resources Whose Black Politics? Cases in Post-Racial Black Leadership, edited by Andra Gillespie: https://a.co/d/0j42FVEF Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, Symbols, and Hope, by Andra Gillespie: https://a.co/d/059YKuFz The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America, by Andra Gillespie: https://a.co/d/0e4zn1AM "The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout," Gerber and Green's 1998 New Haven field experiment: https://isps.yale.edu/research/publications/isps00-001 Street Fight, Marshall Curry's documentary of the 2002 Newark mayoral race: https://tribecafilm.com/news/512c0e971c7d76d9a9000648-tribeca-takes-marshall-cu Andra Gillespie, Emory University Department of Political Science: https://polisci.emory.edu/people/biography/gillespie-andra.html Andra Gillespie on X: https://x.com/AndraGillespie Show Notes Framing the conversation: 2026 Midterm Election Day Gillespie describes the influences that led to her vocation as a political scientist, and why deep burning questions should drive anyone toward a PhD. 1998 New Haven experiment suggesting personal contact drives turnout: "The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout" "I walked up to him and said, 'Did you know that canvassing can increase voter turnout by nine percent?' And he's like, 'Really? I'm getting ready to run for mayor.'" 2002 Newark mayoral race, Street Fight documentary, racial authenticity, and the field notes behind her first book "It takes years for a realignment to manifest." 2024 shifts among black and Latino voters, the black gender gap, and turnout over conversion Why the president's party usually loses midterms, and how inflation hits the most vulnerable Midterm patterns, divided government, and inflation's sharper bite for families with thin buffers Georgia: 2021 runoff mobilization, an incumbent's Senate race, a tied governor's race, down-ballot stakes Deep reset or short-term reaction? Holding hope and realism together Rereading the major and minor prophets in a corrupt age On Christian nationalism: "I see it as a power grab. … This isn't about Jesus, this is about their own self-aggrandizement." Pluralism without coercion: "Growing up, my mom always talked about how you couldn't be the Holy Spirit for other people." Proverbs 14:34 (NIV): "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people." On legislated morality and hypocrisy: "You're trying to get people to conform to a particular way that, behind closed doors, you can't even live up to." "Credible witness," words and deeds as one. Matthew 7:28–29 (NIV): "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law." Hope in Christ when circumstances offer none #Conversing #Midterms2026 #ElectionDay #GeorgiaPolitics #BlackPolitics #ChristianNationalism #FaithAndPolitics #PoliticalScience
