Mara Liasson

Mara Liasson is the national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazines All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC — focusing on the White House and Congress — and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway.

Each election year, Liasson provides key coverage of the candidates and issues in both presidential and congressional races. During her tenure she has covered five presidential elections — in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. Prior to her current assignment, Liasson was NPR's White House correspondent for all eight years of the Clinton administration. She has won the White House Correspondents Association's Merriman Smith Award for daily news coverage in 1994, 1995, and again in 1997. From 1989-1992 Liasson was NPR's congressional correspondent.

Liasson joined NPR in 1985 as a general assignment reporter and newscaster. From September 1988 to June 1989 she took a leave of absence from NPR to attend Columbia University in New York as a recipient of a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism.

Prior to joining NPR, Liasson was a freelance radio and television reporter in San Francisco. She was also managing editor and anchor of California Edition, a California Public Radio nightly news program, and a print journalist for The Vineyard Gazette in Martha's Vineyard, Mass.

Liasson is a graduate of Brown University where she earned a bachelor's degree in American history.

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4:00am

Thu January 19, 2012
Election 2012

S.C. Voters Have 2 Days To Make Up Their Minds

All the Republican presidential candidates are campaigning in South Carolina Thursday because the primary is on Saturday. Many voters have still not made up their minds which candidate to vote for.

4:00am

Wed January 11, 2012
Election 2012

Romney Is 2 For 2 In GOP Nominating Contests

Mitt Romney's back-to-back wins give him powerful momentum heading into the next set of GOP contests. Ron Paul came in second in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary followed by Jon Huntsman. A week ago, Romney won the Iowa caucuses.

6:20am

Wed January 4, 2012
Election 2012

Iowa Spotlight Shines On Romney, Santorum And Paul

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were the big winners Tuesday night in the Iowa caucuses. They finished first, second and third respectively. Romney won by the narrowest of margins — eight votes.

12:01am

Thu December 15, 2011
It's All Politics

The State Of The GOP Race: Are We In For A Protracted Primary Season?

Credit Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

The mitts are off, so to speak, in the Republican presidential primary. Mitt Romney, the former front-runner, and his current and most serious rival, Newt Gingrich, are now engaged in an all-out war.

With only a few short weeks until voters in Iowa go to the caucuses, Romney is doing everything he can to stop Gingrich's sudden and surprising rise.

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5:02am

Thu December 8, 2011
Presidential Race

Gingrich, Romney Offer Stark Immigration Choice

Credit Mike Carlson / AP

There are many flashpoints between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney as they battle for the Republican presidential nomination. Most of them are about character or leadership: Who can beat President Obama? Who's the real conservative?

But Gingrich and Romney do have one big policy difference — and that's on immigration.

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6:49pm

Thu December 1, 2011
U.S.

Obama's Hope: A Younger, More Diverse Electorate

The American electorate is getting more diverse, more educated and younger. These demographic trends seem to suggest that voters could, in theory at least, be more Obama-friendly in 2012, especially in some key states. But it's not clear whether these shifts can outweigh the dragging economy and the president's dismal approval ratings.

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1:37pm

Tue November 22, 2011

12:01am

Thu November 17, 2011
Election 2012

Political Climate Ripe For A Third-Party Prospect

Originally published on Thu November 17, 2011 2:02 pm

Credit Jeff Kowalsky / AFP/Getty Images

Voter dissatisfaction with both parties is at an all-time high — and voters' trust in Washington is at an all-time low.

This is the kind of political climate that is welcoming for an alternative to the Democrats and the Republicans.

Pollster Stan Greenberg worked for Bill Clinton in 1992, when third-party candidate Ross Perot roiled the race. If it happened back then, Greenberg says, it can happen again next year.

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4:47pm

Tue November 8, 2011
Election 2012

Can Obama Make History Again?

Three years ago, the state of Virginia flipped. It had voted for George W. Bush in 2004, but in 2008, it went for Barack Obama, with the help of independent voters like Emily Perri. But as Perri cast her ballot in local elections in Fairfax on Tuesday morning, she wasn't so sure she would vote for the president again.

"I'm not entirely positive, you know, another four years will help improve things or not under Obama," Perri said.

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