lmgoldst 
lauren@hitstrat.com 
PUBLICATIONS
- Gerald D. Higginbotham, David O. Sears, and Lauren Goldstein. "When an Irresistible Prejudice Meets Immovable Politics: Black Legal Gun Ownership Undermines Racially Resentful White Americans’ Gun Rights Advocacy." American Psychological Association.
- "Black communities have been hit hard by the coronavirus. Some think black Americans are to blame." Washington Post.
- “Continuity or Change? Contextualizing the Role of Racism and Polarization in the Trump Era.” UCLA Dissertation.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
-Qualitative and Quantitative Research
-Message Development
-Criminal legal reform and police divestment
-Reproductive justice
-Youth voters
Lauren Goldstein is the Research Director at HIT Strategies. Lauren’s research focuses on criminal legal reform, reproductive justice, and youth voters, particularly youth voters of color, and how political candidates can successfully message these issues and mobilize these constituencies.
Before joining HIT Strategies in May 2022, Lauren was a Senior Analyst with Change Research. She conducted polling for clients, including the New Georgia Project, the ACLU, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and the Alliance for Youth Action. Prior to Change Research, Lauren earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from UCLA. Her doctoral research concentrated on the role of sociocultural identities, such as race and gender, as well as racial attitudes among white voters, in shaping political attitudes and participation. Her dissertation explored the antecedent racial attitudes that predated Trump’s political rise to power by contextualizing polarization and racism as long-standing trends in the white American electorate that became newly salient not when Trump came to power but upon the election of the first Black president.
Lauren graduated from Middlebury College in 2011 with a degree in History and a minor in Psychology. She is based in Washington, DC.