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

President elect Joe Biden
Blocking the transition is risking American lives
Biden needs to be able to begin planning, especially during a crisis.
Melody Barnes and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Washington Post
CBSN
Biden presses ahead with White House transition as Trump refuses to concede
President-elect Joe Biden is pressing ahead with the White House transition process despite facing hurdles from President Trump. Mr. Biden has already formed a coronavirus advisory board and named his chief of staff. Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, joins CBSN to discuss the latest developments.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas CBSN
USA Today
Joe Biden's team says 'theatrics' of Trump's legal fights won't impede a smooth transition
But the lack of access could pose a threat to Biden's first weeks in office, according to Kathryn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. "This strikes me as a matter of the country's reputation internationally and being so vulnerable. The whole world is watching and clearly our enemies can see that vulnerability," Tenpas said. "So the question is do people try to take advantage of that?"
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas USA Today
UVA Today
6 questions about the presidential transition
“Typically, there are 78 days between the election and inauguration,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a practitioner senior fellow at the Miller Center and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “That is not a lot of time to stand up a government, and I think many people in the U.S. and in Washington, D.C., do not realize how important that time is, and how short it is.”
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas UVA Today
The Hill
We can solve errors in polls by voting in the election this year
At a week before the election, who will win? Joe Biden is solidly ahead of Donald Trump in the national polls, and less solidly but still notably ahead in most battleground state polls. In most cases, his lead exceeds the stated margin of error in the polls. But few Democrats, still shell-shocked over 2016 (to say nothing of 2000), really want to believe these polls. Are they just superstitious or are they right to be nervous?
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Hill
White House Transition Project
White House Office of Political Affairs
Begun in 1998, the White House Transition Project provides information about individual offices for staff coming into the White House to help streamline the process of transition from one administration to the next. A nonpartisan, nonprofit group, the WHTP brings together political science scholars who study the presidency and White House operations to write analytical pieces on relevant topics about presidential transitions, residential appointments, and crisis management.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas White House Transition Project