Dotty Lynch

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Dotty Lynch is an executive in residence at American University's School of Communication and a political consultant for CBS News. She stepped down at the end of 2005 as the Senior Political Editor of CBS News where she covered politics for twenty years. Lynch began her career in politics and journalism at NBC News in 1968 and joined the polling firm of Cambridge Survey Research in 1972 where she worked on the polling for the Presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter and for many Senate and Gubernatorial campaigns In the 1980's Lynch developed the concept of the gender gap and is one of the major authorities on the topic of women in politics. In 1983 she opened Lynch Research, a political polling firm where she was the first women pollster in a Presidential campaign-the Gary Hart Presidential race and the Mondale Ferraro general election.

The 2004 election marked Lynch's 10th Presidential campaign as a professional journalist and pollster. At CBS News, she covered 5 Presidential campaigns, 10 national Political conventions, 18 Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates and 5 midterm elections. Lynch was the co-director of the Election and Survey Unit where she managed a team of researchers to provide information and analysis to all CBS TV broadcasts, CBS Radio and CBSNews.com, where she has been writing a weekly column, Political Points since 2001. Lynch worked extensively on political broadcasts with CBS correspondents including Dan Rather, Lesley Stahl, Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Charles Kuralt, Mike Wallace, Diane Sawyer, in particular on their interviews with prominent American leaders including Presidents George H.W Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dan Quayle and virtually all Presidential candidates, major Cabinet officials and Congressional and political leaders since 1985.

Lynch was a fellow at the JFK Institute of Politics at Harvard University in the Spring '06 semester where she conducted a study group on the 2006 Midterm Elections. Lynch often appears on C-SPAN, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, NPR as well as CBS Radio.