Longtime Goucher pollster to become director of new UMBC politics institute

Mileah Kromer, founding director of the Goucher College poll, has moved on to become founding director of a new Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Mileah Kromer, a longtime pollster and director of Goucher College’s Sarah T. Hughes Center for Politics, will become the founding director next week of a new Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County – just in time for the fall elections.

Besides running the institute, which will be housed in the university’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Kromer will teach courses in national and Maryland politics and in survey research methodology as an associate professor at UMBC.

In a statement announcing the move, the university said Kromer and the institute will begin public polling and other initiatives on topics related to this year’s general election and the 2025 Maryland legislative session. The institute will launch with the start of fall semester classes next week

“There has never been a more crucial time in our democracy for credible, high-quality research and information on our political systems and electoral processes,” UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby said in a statement Thursday.

“As a public R1 [top research] institution located in the greater Washington, D.C., region, UMBC is ideally situated to enrich political understanding, elevate the level of public discourse, and better prepare our students to be active, engaged citizens of our state, our nation, and our world,” her statement said.

Kromer has nearly two decades of public opinion polling and teaching politics. Since 2012, she has directed the center at Goucher College, where she founded the Goucher College Poll. In April, the center hosted a forum for leading U.S. Senate candidates that was co-sponsored by Maryland Matters .

In addition to writing opinion pieces for various publications, including Maryland Matters, Kromer is also the author of a book on former Gov. Larry Hogan (R), “Blue-State Republican,” released in 2022.

She said that as a first-generation college graduate, she was looking forward to joining a public university, which has “the power to change the lives of students from all backgrounds.”

“I’m excited to build an institute that supports learning opportunities for the next generation of policymakers and builds on the already excellent work done by faculty in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences,” she said in a statement provided by the university.