The 2024 US Republican Primaries in Historical Perspective

• In-person event
• A602, Loeb Building, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6

Many journalists, academics, and pundits have been calling the 2024 primaries a part of a historic rupture in US politics. But these elections reflect both historic continuities and longterm changes that have been shaping American politics and policymaking for more than a century. As such, these state-level, political contests offer an important window into  US democratic processes, the perceived power of the president, and the potential for reinvigorated, engaged electorate.

Elizabeth Tandy Shermer is the 2023-2024 Fulbright Canada Distinguished Chair in Public Affairs in North America at Carleton University. She is a professor of history focusing on the 20th and 21st century US. Her research on politics, public policy, capitalism, and labor has appeared in op-eds, academic articles, and scholarly books, including Sunbelt Capitalism (2013) and Indentured Students (2021). She is currently finishing a monograph on the public/private character of American higher education, tentatively titled, The Business of Education as well as an edited collection on work, capitalism, and democracy in the 20th-Century US.