Experts

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Practitioner Senior Fellow
TenpasVitaSEPT2020.pdf

Fast Facts

  • Director of the Katzmann Initiative and visiting fellow with Governance Studies, the Brookings Institution
  • Advisory board member, White House Transition Project
  • Fellow, Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service

Areas Of Expertise

  • The First Year
  • Governance
  • Elections
  • Leadership
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas is director of the Katzmann Initiative and a visiting fellow with Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, advisory board member of the White House Transition Project, and a fellow with the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service.

Tenpas is a scholar of the American presidency focusing on White House staffing, presidential transitions, and the intersection of politics and policy within the presidency (e.g., presidential reelection campaigns, trends in presidential travel, and polling). She has authored the book Presidents as Candidates: Inside the White House for the Presidential Campaign and published more than 60 articles, book chapters, and papers on these topics.

Tenpas earned her BA degree from Georgetown University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Virginia.

Featured Publications

Presidents as Candidates
Presidents as Candidates

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas News Feed

Newsweek
Joe Biden's Backing of Neera Tanden Could Cost Him Key Political Capital, Experts Say
But experts warned against Biden dragging out Tanden's nomination, arguing that he could risk losing political capital he will need to pass much of his legislative agenda over the next four years. "I suspect that he will not prolong this," Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow with governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told Newsweek. "My advice would be to not lose any more political capital than you already have, don't go to the mat for it, because this is one of several really important appointments that you need to get in place quickly," she added. "Already, they're behind. They only have six of 15."
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Newsweek
The Hill
Biden passes one-month mark with less than half a Cabinet
"The experience of the past three administrations suggests that despite the relative speed and efficiency that the Biden transition demonstrated in identifying nominees, there are hurdles that will likely delay the confirmation of their carefully picked candidates," Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia who has tracked Cabinet appointments across administrations, wrote earlier this month. "Such a delay amidst a pandemic, economic volatility and historically high levels of racial tension is a most unfortunate setback."
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Hill
NPR
Biden Pledged Historic Cabinet Diversity. Here's How His Nominees Stack Up
"Numbers don't tell you everything. And so in this small sample size, just looking at the scene, it looks like he's doing OK with [diversity]. But in fact ... there are some historic firsts," said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow with Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, who has compiled data on the diversity of presidents' Cabinets.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas NPR
SiriusXM
Dr. Katie Dunn Tenpas on the Biden Presidential Transition
Miller Center Senior Fellow Katie Dunn Tenpas is interviewed on Full Stop with Mark Preston.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas SiriusXM
Government Executive
Biden Administration Has Four Nominees Confirmed So Far
The Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate, which bodes well for Biden’s confirmation progress. However, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said “it is difficult to forecast the impact” of the upcoming impeachment trial for former President Trump in the Senate, but “it is safe to say that it will likely slow down the confirmation process.”
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Government Executive
Marketplace
Another challenge for the Biden administration: thousands of federal appointments
“We do this odd thing of basically lopping off the top of the pyramid of our senior employees across the federal government and asking presidents to make roughly 4,000 political appointments,” said Katherine Dunn-Tenpas, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “And of the 4,000, roughly 1,300 or so require Senate confirmation,” she said. “So that’s an arduous task,” especially if the opposing party in the Senate decides to slow things down.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Marketplace