WOMEN VOTE: The Impact Women may have on the 2020 Election

September 15, 2020

This virtual talk was with Betsy Fischer Martin, Emmy-winning journalist, former TV news executive, and current Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute and Executive in Residence for American University School of Public Affairs; Charlotte Alter, National Correspondent at TIME Magazine; Claudia Cereceda, 2016 graduate of NYU, Liberal Studies and veteran of two presidential campaigns; and Brianna Cea, CEO and co-founder of Generation Vote.

Women voters may determine who wins the 2020 election. In the 2018 elections, dubbed the “Year of the Women,” 102 women were elected to the House of Representatives and 14 to the United States Senate. While we celebrate the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, by which some women were given the franchise, women are still substantially underrepresented in elected offices. National surveys of women in the United States reveal that health, gender-based violence, workplace equity, and racial justice are priorities for women across party lines. Gen Z women register higher levels of concern for their personal and economic security than older generations.

Our panelists discussed these and other trends.

YOUTUBE MEDIA

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Additional Sponsors:

NYU Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, & Strategic Innovation
NYU Institute of African American Affairs / Center for Black Visual Culture
NYU DC Dialogues

Charlotte Alter

Brianna Cea

Claudia Cereceda

Betsy Fischer Martin

Charlotte Alter, National Correspondent at TIME Magazine

Charlotte Alter is a national correspondent at TIME Magazine covering politics and social issues. She has covered the 2016, 2018, and 2020 campaigns, the Women’s March and anti-Trump resistance, and the rise in activism around gun violence and climate change. Her coverage often has a special focus on women in politics, social movements, and youth activism. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, writer and journalist Mark Chiusano, two pink chairs and one dying plant.

Brianna Cea, CEO and co-founder of Generation Vote

Brianna Cea, is the CEO and co-founder of Generation Vote, where she educates, mobilizes and connects young people to become agents of change in local electoral and advocacy campaigns through the GenVote Model of Engagement. She is also the Co-Chair of the Let NY Vote Youth Voting Rights Working Group, the largest voting rights coalition in New York State and responsible for passing the first NY voter reform laws in over 100 years. Brianna is a research and program associate at the Brennan Center for Justice, where she focuses on the census and redistricting. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Atlantic, SCOTUSblog and other outlets. Brianna is also involved with the Roosevelt Institute Alumni Network, where she serves as a Forge Fellowship Mentor, and sits on the Board for OCA-Asian Pacific Advocates NY. Cea graduated summa cum laude with a BA in political science and philosophy, politics and law from Binghamton University in May 2018. While on campus, she was a Newman Civic Fellow, served as the Regional Coordinator for the Roosevelt Institute Lower Northeast Region, founded Roosevelt Institute at Binghamton University and the Broome County Student Board of Advisors, and interned with the New York Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery and Tenant Protection Unit.

Claudia Cereceda, 2016 graduate of NYU, Liberal Studies; current NYU Wagner Student

Claudia Cereceda is a 2016 graduate of NYU, Liberal Studies. After graduating, Claudia worked as Special Assistant to the First Lady of the City of New York, the Director of Scheduling for the First Lady and then the Director of Operations in the office of the Mayor of the CIty of New York. She worked on the National Regional Operations Desk of the Elizabeth Warren for President Campaign. Currently, she is a public policy student at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Betsy Fischer Martin, Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs, where she teaches courses on campaigns and elections. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming. A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communication.