Henry Olsen

Senior Fellow

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.

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Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.

From 2019–2023, Mr. Olsen was an opinion columnist for The Washington Post, where he wrote daily pieces focusing on politics, populism, foreign affairs and American conservative thought. He is also the author of The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism and The Four Faces of the Republican Party, co-authored with Dante Scala.

Mr. Olsen taught as the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Arizona State University for the Winter/Spring 2023 semester. He has taught at Villanova University, the Catholic University of America, and the Hillsdale College D.C. Graduate Studies Program.

Mr. Olsen was previously an editor at UnHerd.com and a regular contributor to American GreatnessCity Journal, and World Magazine. Mr. Olsen’s work has been featured in many prominent publications, including The New York TimesThe Wall Street JournalNational ReviewThe Guardian, and The Weekly Standard.

His predictions of the 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 elections were particularly praised for their remarkable accuracy. In the 2016 campaign, he accurately identified the factors fueling the rise of Donald Trump early in the race, and his election-eve predictions were among the most accurate of any major analyst or commentator.

Mr. Olsen has worked in senior executive positions at many center-right think tanks. He most recently served from 2006 to 2013 as Vice President and Director, National Research Initiative, at the American Enterprise Institute. He previously worked as Vice President of Programs at the Manhattan Institute and President of the Commonwealth Foundation.

Mr. Olsen started his career as a political consultant at the California firm of Hoffenblum-Mollrich. He then worked with the California State Assembly Republican Caucus before attending law school. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and as an associate at Dechert, Price & Rhoads. He has a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as Comment Editor for the University of Chicago Law Review.

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The Polls May Be Underestimating Trump’s Support

Henry Olsen

Whether Donald Trump’s support strengthens or fades, the real issue remains: Millions of working-class voters are angry, and their anger is not going to quickly disappear even if their current champion does.

Articles

The Atlantic / December 9, 2015

A Deep Dive into Trump’s Poll Numbers Shows Most Pundits Get Him Wrong

Henry Olsen

While poll numbers superficially suggest that Donald Trump’s chances of winning the nomination are better than commonly thought, an even closer look shows that Trump’s appeal is likely to be deep but very limited.

Articles

Walker, Rubio Health Plans Renew Reaganism for Our Age

Henry Olsen

New health care proposals by Republican candidates mark a monumental development for both the campaign and for the conservative movement, one that breathes Ronald Reagan’s soul into the Republican nomination fight.

Articles

RealClearPolitics / August 19, 2015

Why Kasich Matters (and Could Win)

Henry Olsen

Ohio Governor John Kasich is slowly positioning himself to become the person most likely to surprise and break out of the crowded GOP primary pack.

Articles

National Review Online / June 23, 2015

Jeb Bush, Vanilla Conservative

Henry Olsen

There’s reason to wonder if the “Republican vanilla” brand will prove to be as popular with both primary- and general-election voters in 2016 as it has in the past.

Articles

National Review Online / June 17, 2015

Scott Walker’s Tax Populism

Henry Olsen

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has eschewed the typical supply-side orthodoxy in favor of an economically successful – and politically popular – alternative.

Articles

Getting No Respect: Blue-Collar Voters

Henry Olsen

Working-class discontent continues to grow and gather steam, fracturing and reordering politics in virtually every country.

Articles

Elite Convergence

Henry Olsen

In its rush to convict the educated Left, a new book overlooks the important complicity among certain elites on the Right in the plight of non-college-educated, native-born Americans.

Articles

Whose Republicans?

Henry Olsen

Today’s conservatives must follow Reagan’s example and reapply their principles to meet today’s economic and political realities.

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The Submerging Democratic Majority

Henry Olsen

If Republicans want to take hold of an “emerging Republican advantage” in future elections, they must present a positive image of the party that incorporates healthy respect for private initiative with an eagerness to make government work for the average person and the struggling person.

Articles

National Review Online / February 9, 2015

Jeb’s Prospects

Henry Olsen

The establishment agenda Jeb Bush seems poised to offer is strikingly out of step with the voters who will decide the 2016 Republican nomination and the general election.

Articles

The GOP’s Entitlement Challenge

Henry Olsen

Conservative Republicans should recognize the very real difficulties that working-class voters face and seek to devise innovative ways to address them. Doing so would address the GOP’s decades-long empathy gap and recover the party’s historic role as the natural home for the American worker.

Articles

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