Elise Jordan is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and a contributor to TIME. Elise is an advisor to the Ashcroft in America research project studying voter attitudes during the midterm elections. She was a policy advisor to Senator Rand Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign. During the Bush administration, Elise worked in the White House Office of Presidential Speechwriting and at the State Department as a speechwriter and advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In 2007, she joined the National Security Council, where she worked on press and communications strategy for the administration’s Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan policies. While at the White House, Elise worked for extended periods at the U.S. Embassy Baghdad and the Commanding General’s Strategic Advisory Group at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was born and raised in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and is a graduate of Yale University.