Mara Liasson
Mara Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. 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 seven presidential elections — in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. 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, Massachusetts.
Liasson is a graduate of Brown University where she earned a bachelor's degree in American history.
-
Now the White House chief of staff, Lew finessed the 2011 deal that set up the automatic spending cuts and tax hikes set for the new year — and did it in a way that put President Obama in the catbird seat for the current talks. Now he's a possible pick to be the next Treasury secretary. -
The latest poll by NPR and its bipartisan polling team shows President Obama with a 7-point lead among likely voters nationally and a 6-point lead in the dozen battleground states where both campaigns are spending most of their time and money. But battleground voters were also more downbeat about the direction of the country. -
The latest poll by NPR and its bipartisan polling team shows President Obama with a 7-point lead among likely voters nationally and a 6-point lead in the dozen battleground states where both campaigns are spending most of their time and money. But battleground voters were also more downbeat about the direction of the country.
-
Predicting elections is a game of numbers; the unemployment rate, GDP growth and a president's approval ratings among other numbers. But each campaign must also run the numbers on the voters themselves to find out what kinds of people can be persuaded to come to the polls in November.
-
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee and the president are taking their stump speeches to a prominent group of elected Latino officials. Both candidates see garnering Latino votes as critical to winning. -
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's losses on Tuesday have raised questions once again about his ability to inspire passion from his party's base. There has been a daily drumbeat begging Romney to put some meat on the bones of his policy agenda and set out his vision for the country. -
The young, educated and ethnically diverse voters that make up some of President Obama's key constituencies will be a bigger percentage of the electorate in 2012. But this demographic shift may not be enough to compensate for the president's dwindling approval ratings.
-
President Obama held a news conference in the East Room of the White House Thursday, pushing Congress to pass his jobs bill. Again, the president challenged Republicans to support his plan or to seek compromise on an alternative. He also took aim at the nation's banks for rising fees — and their efforts to fight financial reform.
-
President Obama held Thursday his much-anticipated health care summit. The daylong back-and-forth didn't produce much bipartisan agreement, something neither side expected. But it did illuminate at least one thing: how both parties see the stakes in the health care debate.
-
President Obama said Tuesday Democrats and Republicans should be able to come together and pass a jobs bill. The comments came at a meeting with congressional leaders from both parties.
