Contributor

Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto

Fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto received her Ph.D. from Duke University and was recently named one of the top 12 scholars in the country by Diverse magazine. Her research on political behavior has been widely published in scholarly journals and cited in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Time, and POLITICO. Fluent in both English and Spanish, Victoria provides political analysis on both US politics and its implications forcountries abroad.

Victoria’s research analyzes how social identities shape political behavior. Her academic work focuses on: campaigns and elections, political marketing, race and ethnic politics, and immigration. She also serves on the editorial board of Politics,Groups, and Identities. She is currently working on a book manuscript that analyzes the role of inter-group identities and micro-targeting in political campaigns.

In the media sphere, Victoria contributes to various national and international media outlets. She is a regular political analyst for Univision and CNN en Espanol. In 2008 and 2010, she served as a primary expert and analyst for CNN en Espanol’s election coverage. Victoria also appears on MSNBC, FoxNews, NPR, and Sirius XM. In her media analysis Victoria is passionate about making social science relatable to real time political events. She is a regular blogger for POLITICO’S Arena, Huffington Post, and the Daily Grito.

Victoria is a Fellow at the Center for Governance and Politics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She also serves as the Director of Communications for Latino Decisions and is a Senior Fellow at the Bernard Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy.

Victoria is a proud native of Cochise County in Southern Arizona. She is of Italian-Jewish-Mexican heritage and lives in beautiful Austin, Texas.