B.A.  Muskingum College
M.A. University of Virginia, Economics
M.A. Northwestern University, Political Science
Ph.D. Northwestern University, Political Science

Graduate Courses:

American Political Parties
Federalism and State Politics
Advanced Quantitative Methods
Research Design

Recent Publications:

Split: Class and Cultural Divisions in American Politics (CQ Press, 2007); Parties Matter: Realignment and the Return of Partisanship (Lynne-Rienner, 2006); Governing New York State, (SUNY Press, 2006); Political Polling, (Roman and Littlefield, 2003); The Emergence of State Government: Parties and New Jersey Politics, 1950-2000, (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002); Diverging Parties: Social Change, Realignment, and Party Polarization, (Westview Press, 2002); Class and Party in American Politics, (Westview Press, 2000); Editor.

Research Interests:

Political parties and realignment of their electoral bases, and the impact of realignment on the nature of policy debates; changes in the role of government and the effect of parties on those decisions.

Current Research Projects:

Re-examination of the growth of the incumbent effect in US elections over the last century.  While it has become conventional wisdom that this effect has grown in recent decades, a more thorough analysis of the evidence indicates that there may have been no growth and that what changes we did see may have been a temporary product of realignment.