Livingston Lecture - "How Did We Get Here: Understanding the Republican Party in the Era of Donald Trump"

The 2024 nomination of Donald Trump was both predictable and bizarre. Seth Masket, a professor of political science at the University of Denver, examines how the Republican Party has changed over the past three decades in a way that made a second President Trump term possible. Stemming from conversations with hundreds of local Republican Party leaders across the country, Masket discovered that many, even most, local party leaders were deeply uncomfortable with nominating Trump again in 2024. Unlike in the past, however, the party's "leaders” felt powerless to stop this, given a new populist wing of voters.

Seth Masket is the author of "The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders” (2026). He also contributes occasionally at Politico, the Denver Post, and other publications, and maintains a popular Substack newsletter, “The Smotus Report.”

This event has a reception with light bites/refreshments from 5:30-6 p.m.

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