Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto is a Senior Analyst for Latino Decisions. She 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, DeFrancesco Soto's academic work focuses on campaigns and elections, political marketing, race and ethnic politics, and immigration. She serves on the editorial board of Politics, Groups, and Identities and 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 Español. 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, and is a regular blogger for POLITICO’S Arena, Huffington Post, and NBC Latino.
She is a Senior Fellow at the Bernard Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy. Victoria has taught at Northwestern University, Rutgers and is currently a Fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.