Biographical Sketch
David P. Redlawsk is Director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling and Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, where directs the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll. Professor Redlawsk received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Rutgers University. He also holds an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University and a B.A. from Duke University. His research focuses on campaign, elections, the role of information in voter decision making and on emotional responses to campaign information. He has received several grants to support his research from the National Science Foundation, and he served on the Board of Overseers for the American National Election Studies from 2009-2013.
Prof. Redlawsk was a Fellow at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement at Drake University during Fall 2015. He previously taught at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, from 1999 through 2009, where he founded the Hawkeye Poll.
Prof. Redlawsk’s newest book is The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning, with Kyle Mattes, published in 2014 by the University of Chicago Press. He is also the author (with Caroline Tolbert and Todd Donovan) of Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process (University of Chicago Press, 2011). His earlier book, How Voters Decide: Information Processing in an Election Campaign, (with Richard Lau) was published by Cambridge University Press and won the 2007 Alexander George Award for best Book in Political Psychology from the International Society of Political Psychology.
Prof. Redlawsk has also edited three volumes, including The American Governor: Power, Constraint, and Leadership in the States (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015). Others include Feeling Politics: Emotion in Political Information Processing (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006) and Civic Service: Service-Learning with State and Local Government Partners (with Tom Rice), published in 2009 by Jossey-Bass.
Prof. Redlawsk’s research has also been published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, and the American Journal of Political Science, as well as Political Psychology among others. He served as co-editor of the journal Political Psychology from 2009 through 2015, and is a past member of the Governing Council of the International Society of Political Psychology. He was chair of the Political Psychology Organized Section of the American Political Science Association for 2009-2010.
Prof. Redlawsk’s courses include Survey Research, Local Politics, Political Campaigning, Voting Behavior, Political Psychology, Decision Making, and Experimental Methods.
Prof. Redlawsk has significant experience in local government and planning, having served as chair of a local planning commission and as an elected local official in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the 1980’s and 1990’s. During his time at the University of Iowa, Prof. Redlawsk was acting chair of the Johnson County Democratic Party during the 2004 Iowa Caucuses and was responsible for managing 57 precincts in what was then county’s largest ever caucus turnout. In 2006 he served as Treasurer and senior advisor for the successful Loebsack for Congress campaign.
Prof. Redlawsk is married to Aletia Morgan, who has served on school boards both in New Jersey and in Iowa City. They reside in East Brunswick, NJ, and have two children, Andrew and Greg, both of whom live in New York City, performing and working behind the scenes in theatre and movie productions.