Henry Olsen is an elections analyst and political essayist who studies conservative politics, both here and abroad.  He looks at election returns and poll data to understand why people vote the way they do and how conservative politicians and thinkers can best advance their ideas in the climate they face.

Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Prior to that, he was a vice president at the American Enterprise Institute, a vice president at the Manhattan Institute, and president of the Commonwealth Foundation.  He has also been a lawyer at the firm currently known as Dechert, a clerk for the Honorable Judge Danny J. Boggs on the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a staffer for the California Assembly Republican Caucus, and an associate at the political consulting firm of Hoffenblum-Mollrich.

Olsen graduated with a B.A. in political science from Claremont McKenna College, and received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. 

His public election predictions can be found here (2004), here (2010), here (2012), and here (2014).  Links to his recent (post-2011) work can be found here.

His book Four Faces of the Republican Party: The Fight for the 2016 Presidential Nomination, authored with University of New Hampshire professor Dante Scala, will be published this fall by Palgrave. Olsen is currently working on his first sole-authored book which will re-examine Ronald Reagan’s intellectual legacy for conservatives.

When not geeking out on elections, he is the proud father of two children, a twelve-year old son who likes Vivaldi and a sixteen-year old daughter who likes Eminem.  He passionately supports the New York Yankees and Tottenham Hotspur.