A LIFE OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT & SERVICE
Early Life
Dave grew up in Mechanicsburg, PA as the eldest of three children. From the earliest age, Dave was taught the values of discipline, hard work, and community service. He started his first job at 10 years old delivering newspapers, and at just 14, he attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America (now Scouting America). Scouting was a formative experience for Dave, and gave him his earliest lessons in leadership and civic engagement. He later spent nearly two decades as an adult scout leader both before and while his sons were Scouts themselves.
However, Dave’s childhood was also touched by tragedy in a way too familiar to many American families: he lost his mother to suicide when he was 19. As the eldest son, working through that profound grief and supporting his two younger siblings through unimaginable loss helped shape the person he would become, and made him especially aware of the need to ensure access to mental health services as basic healthcare.
Dave's original union card (despite the misspelled last name)
Education
Despite family struggles, Dave excelled in high school. He was elected Student Council President, earned a National Merit scholarship, and was accepted to Duke University to pursue his undergraduate degree. In the summers, he would come home to Mechanicsburg and work at a manufacturing plant on the grinding line and in final assembly. He still has his United Steelworkers union card to this day! The union job paid well and helped him afford college tuition without massive debt.
Dave graduated magna cum laude from Duke with a degree in Political Science. He went on to earn an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University, and an M.A. and Ph.D in Political Science from Rutgers University. It was at Vanderbilt that he met his wife, Aletia Morgan, who was also an MBA student focused on Information Systems at a time when women often encountered significant sexism in pursuing careers in business and technology.
Aletia & Dave on their wedding day
Family Life: Women's Health Becomes Personal
Dave and Aletia married in 1982, and a few years later dealt with personal adversity that brought home the vital importance of access to women’s reproductive healthcare. Full of the excitement and hope of starting a family, Aletia learned she had a then unnamed autoimmune disease after their first son, Brian, was stillborn due to complications from the disease. With the amazing care she later received at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Aletia was able to begin managing the lifelong disorder (now known as Antiphospholipid Syndrome/Lupus). With their care, she made it through two challenging but successful pregnancies, and welcomed sons Andrew and Greg into their lives.
To this day, Aletia faces unique health challenges that necessitate ongoing access to advanced medical care. For Dave and Aletia, cost and access to quality healthcare is personal because without that access, their story could be a very, very different one. No family should ever have to choose between the cost of quality healthcare and survival.
Dave, Greg, Aletia, and Andrew (L to R)
Early Career
Dave began his professional career in information technology, first as a Systems Analyst & Programmer, followed by a move to Fisk University - an historically Black college (HBCU) in Nashville - where he became the IT Director and taught management and economics. Meanwhile, Aletia started her career at IBM. After Fisk, Dave and Aletia moved back north, where he became the Director of Computing at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA.
While working as a higher education administrator was fulfilling, Dave realized his true calling was teaching. This led him to pursue his Ph.D in political science at Rutgers, which required a move to NJ. Aletia transferred to another IBM office, then worked at two NJ School districts to implement new technology infrastructure. Given her typical NJ commute, Dave was the primary parent to their two young boys on weekdays.
Running for Office
While serving as the Director of Computing at Moravian, Dave was named to the Planning Commission for Springfield Township in rural Bucks County, PA, becoming Chair a year later. In that role, he led a complete rewrite of the Development and Zoning Codes designed to protect natural beauty and open space while supporting reasonable development. In doing so, he worked with residents across the township to understand their concerns, developing an appreciation of the complexities of land use. He shared this expertise at PA Planning Association meetings. Dave was soon thereafter elected to the Board of Supervisors - his first elected office. Aletia, not to be outdone, was elected as a Township Auditor.
In 1992, two years after moving to New Jersey so he could attend Rutgers, Dave ran an underdog campaign for the solidly Republican Township Committee and lost. He ran again a year later and… also lost. Then, in 1995, it all came together and Dave became the first Democrat in Hillsborough to win a seat in 13 years. He won re-election in 1998, and by the time he left New Jersey to become a professor at the University of Iowa, he’d successfully transformed the committee from entirely Republican to entirely Democrat. Dave’s electoral experience is one of tenacity, persistence, and never giving up. His drive to help make his neighbors’ lives better kept him going and transformed Hillsborough’s local government during these years.
Election Night with his sons Andrew & Greg, 1998
A Scholar of Democracy
At the height of his electoral success in New Jersey, Dave was offered the opportunity to follow his passion to become a professor at a respected university. He chose to step away from the political spotlight and put his new Ph.D to use as an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa. And so, this east coast family packed up and drove to the land of corn, much to their sons' dismay. Over the years, Dave would become a leading global expert in political psychology - dedicating his research to understanding how people make decisions, how elections function, and the health of democratic institutions. He authored and edited many books, including Hate Speech on Campus, Feeling Politics: Emotion in Political Information Processing, How Voters Decide, and Civic Service: Service Learning with State and Local Government Partners. He also became the leading expert on the Iowa Caucuses, publishing Why Iowa? How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process. He has been particularly sought out by national and international media for his ability to make complex academic research more accessible and understandable for their readers and viewers.
Dave is a regular guest expert on television and radio news
Iowa Politics & Community Engagement
Even before he’d set foot in Iowa, Dave reached out to the Johnson County (Iowa City) Democratic Organization. Upon arriving, he was appointed a precinct committee person, and ran the first Iowa Caucus he ever attended (voting for Bill Bradley). Over his decade there, he acted as County Chair during the 2004 Caucuses, overseeing 57 precinct caucuses and the largest turnout ever (only to be eclipsed four years later.) In 2008, he was an elected Democratic National Convention Delegate where he cast his vote for Barack Obama.
He was appointed by the Governor of Iowa to a state commission focused on bringing services to the public via information technology, and also served in several community organizations, including Iowa City Sertoma. Always making time for his sons, he was a member of the Iowa City Babe Ruth Baseball Board of Directors, and coached their teams for several years.
Dave coaching his sons' baseball team in Iowa
Back to the East Coast
In 2009, Dave returned to Rutgers University as Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling. He published an edited book on American Governors, and oversaw dozens of Rutgers-Eagleton Polls on NJ politics and policy while in this role.
At Rutgers, Dave had to remain non-partisan as Eagleton Poll director, and so focused much of his community engagement within Rutgers and with students, including being named a Champion of Civic Engagement by the university. His deepest commitment was to Middlesex County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) on whose Board he sat as a member and then Treasurer for most of his years there and even after coming to Delaware.
Dave is now the James R. Soles Professor for the Department of Political Science & Int'l Relations at UD
The University of Delaware
In 2015, Dave was recruited by the University of Delaware to become the James R. Soles Professor and the Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations. In addition to his departmental leadership and continued teaching, he has remained an active researcher on decision making and the role of moral values in politics. His most recent book is written for non-academic readers: A Citizen’s Guide to the Political Psychology of Voting.
In a signal of recognition by his peers, he was elected President of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP), the premier academic society in his field. He dedicated his term to championing Academic Freedom worldwide, advocating for scholars in Turkey and elsewhere who were being purged by right-wing populist governments for simply speaking the truth. This led him to twice attend trials of academics in Turkey to help demonstrate that the world was watching. He and his colleagues wrote about the experience in a USA Today column in 2018 and he dedicated his ISPP Presidential Address to lifting up these scholars’ stories.
Newark Becomes Home
Since settling down in Newark ten years ago, Dave and Aletia have continued their active community involvement. Dave calls accepting his position at UD the “best move I ever made”, and both he and Aletia know that Newark is truly their final move and forever home. As they've always done, Dave and Aletia quickly got involved in local Democratic politics. Aletia was elected as Chair of the 23rd RD Democratic Committee in 2021, while Dave served as Treasurer. Dave has since stepped down as Treasurer to run for the State House.
Dave was also appointed to the Newark Board of Elections, and serves as Vice Chair of Rank the Vote Delaware. He is a member of the Delaware Civic Engagement Coalition, and serves as an advisor for Mikva Challenge Delaware - an organization that empowers youth in New Castle County schools to speak to stakeholders about the issues that matter to their lives and actually be heard by those who have the power to make change. Dave has also served for a number of years as Treasurer of the Friends of the UD Library. And in 2016, he moderated the Delaware Debates.
No Kings - March 23, 2026