Research

As a scholar of long-term partisan change in the United States, my work explores how partisanship, ideology, and group attachments have historically anchored political behavior – as well as their unique patterns of influence in the current party system.

Now that my most recent book project has concluded (see below), I am outlining two others. The first will revise and update my doctoral dissertation, which argued that the significance of individuals’ partisanship depends on how they are primed to think about the political process. My working hypothesis is that Americans see political parties as policy coalitions, but experience political campaigns in terms of both ideological and group identity. The second, with Ted Carmines of Indiana University, will investigate the evolution of left and right-wing populism in U.S. public opinion during the Trump era, exploring implications for theories of partisan realignment and issue evolution.

In addition, my ongoing research with Alex Badas (University of Houston) marries my research on partisanship and group identity with my long-standing fascination with the U.S. Supreme Court. In two recent articles in Political Research Quarterly, we show that the way evangelical Christians think about the Court reflects not just their partisanship and ideology — but also their (mis)perceptions of the number of evangelical Justices on the Court.

The Political Dynamics of Partisan Polarization (Cambridge University Press, 2025), with Edward G. Carmines and Paul M. Sniderman. [Replication Materials] [Supplemental Appendix]

Abstract: This is a study of the dynamics of partisan polarization in the United States. It has three objectives: (1) to identify and explain why some Republicans and Democrats – but not others – have polarized, particularly over the last twenty years; (2) to demonstrate that they have done so not on this or that issue but systematically, programmatically – domain versus issue sorting; and (3) to bring into the open profound asymmetries in polarization between the two parties, not least that Republicans polarized early and thoroughly on issues of race, while Democrats in the largest number stayed neutral or even conservative until only recently. Emerging from the reasoning and results is a revised theory of party identification that specifies the conditions under which ordinary Republicans and Democrats can become ideological partisans – real-life conservatives and liberals in their behavior – in the choices they make on candidates, policies, and parties.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

Badas, Alex and Eric R. Schmidt. 2025. “Social Imagery and Subjective Ideological Proximity to the Supreme Court: Evidence from Evangelical Christians.” Political Research Quarterly 78(2): 768-782. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129251321434

Abstract: Public opinion about the U.S. Supreme Court is heavily influenced by whether people perceive that the Court aligns with them ideologically. However, most Americans do not follow the Court closely enough to make informed inferences about their proximity to the Court. To explain this paradox, we theorize that when Americans perceive that they share a salient identity with the Supreme Court Justices, they attribute their own ideological orientation to the Court. Focusing on evangelical Christians, we find strong evidence for this theory. Survey analysis reveals that when evangelicals perceive that a majority of the Justices are evangelical Christians, they report less ideological distance from the Court, even though this does not affect their objective distance from the Court. To clarify the causal direction of this relationship, we conduct a conjoint experiment—showing that when evangelicals evaluate hypothetical nominees to the Court, they report that evangelical nominees are closer to them ideologically. By showing that the Court’s social imagery influences subjective ideological distance judgments, we help explain both the disconnect between subjective and objective proximity and the continued significance of subjective proximity judgments.

Badas, Alex and Eric R. Schmidt. 2024. “Social Imagery and Judicial Legitimacy: Evidence from Evangelical Christians.” Political Research Quarterly 77(1): 137-151. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231197207. (See also coverage of this article on Dr. Paul Djupe’s Religion in Public blog.)

Abstract: Extant research reveals that Americans hold politically consequential beliefs about the demographic composition of political groups and organizations—even when these beliefs are at odds with objective reality. In this article, we investigate the social imagery of the U.S. Supreme Court, with particular attention to beliefs about the Supreme Court Justices’ religious identities. In survey analysis, we find that evangelicals who believe there are more evangelical Christians on the Court grant the Court more legitimacy compared to non-evangelicals. Further, when evangelical Christians believe there are more atheists on the Court, they view the Court less legitimately than non-evangelicals. To rule out the potential of endogeneity, we conduct a conjoint experiment which demonstrates that evangelicals believe evangelical judges will increase the fairness of the Court and are more likely to support evangelical nominees compared to the average nominee. Likewise, they tend to believe out-group judges will harm the fairness of the Court and are less likely to support out-group judges. Our results have implications for diversity on the Court and how non-ideological factors can affect the Court’s legitimacy.

Carmines, Edward G., Eric R. Schmidt, and Matthew R. Fowler. 2022. “Clarifying Our Populist Moment(s): Right-Wing and Left-Wing Populism in the 2016 Presidential Election.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Populism, ed. Michael Oswald. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 579-608. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-80803-7_36.

Abstract: Observing the rise of former President Trump, scholars have suggested that the United States is experiencing a populist moment. We suggest not only that right-wing populism has transformed Republican politics, but that mass populism has redefined the terms of partisan conflict in the United States. Right-wing populism, typified by support for hawkish immigration policies, has taken hold among Republican identifiers. Left-wing populism, involving concerns about structural economic inequality, is ubiquitous among Democratic identifiers. Using an original survey index piloted on the 2017 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we document the prevalence and distribution of both forms of populism. Further, we show that while right-wing populism increased the likelihood that Republicans (and independents) voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, left-wing populism did not push Democrats toward Hillary Clinton. This was the case even though Democrats’ support for left-wing populism was somewhat more concentrated than Republicans’ support for right-wing populism. We attribute these asymmetric effects to the major party choices in 2016. By nominating Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party likely failed to recognize the magnitude of support for left-wing populism among the Democratic rank and file.

Bianco, William T. and Eric R. Schmidt. 2020. “Congressional Credit-Claiming for COVID-19 Assistance: How Home Styles Adapt to Local Context.” Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy 1(4): 631-644. https://dx.doi.org/10.1561/113.00000025

Abstract: Using data on Senators’ credit-claiming for COVID-19 relief efforts, we show how legislators’ home styles (Fenno, 1978) are sensitive to contextual, constituency-level factors. Our analysis draws on an original dataset of 340,000+ Senate press releases issued between 1999 and 2020. After establishing senators’ baseline propensity for credit-claiming (Mayhew, 1974), we examine whether their behavior changed as the pandemic unfolded. We find that at the margin of baseline behavior, the likelihood of credit-claiming for COVID-19 relief varied with state-level public opinion (a general measure of liberalism). These results challenge standard assumptions about representation in contemporary American politics, supporting a granular, context-specific understanding of home styles, and deepen our understanding of how Mayhew’s (1974) model of reelection-seeking behavior holds in the modern era.

Carmines, Edward G. and Eric R. Schmidt. 2020. “Prejudice and Tolerance in U.S. Presidential Politics: Evidence from Eight Light Experiments in 2008 and 2012.” P.S.: Political Science & Politics https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096520000876

Abstract: Using list experiments on the 2008 and 2012 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, we investigated whether respondents are more likely to vote against presidential candidates from marginalized groups. We show that conservative and Republican respondents are disinclined to support Muslim and gay candidates. However, neither Right- nor Left-leaning respondents are significantly opposed to female candidates. Surprisingly, we uncovered asymmetric prejudices toward Mormons and African Americans. In both 2008 and 2012, Republicans were far more uncomfortable with gay or Muslim candidates than with African American candidates (per se). However, Democrats in 2012 were deeply uncomfortable with Mormon candidates. These findings illustrate that prejudice in presidential politics is not confined to right-wing pathologies alone but is present on both sides of the partisan–ideological divide.

Schmidt, Eric R. 2017. “The Influence of Religious-Political Sophistication on U.S. Public Opinion.” Political Behavior 40(1): 21-53. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-017-9390-z

Abstract: Scholarly accounts of elite–mass communication often suggest that political sophistication is a necessary condition for adopting the attitudes of partisan elites. Some have also suggested that political knowledge promotes religious–political issue constraint among religious identifiers. This paper contributes to the political sophistication literature by piloting and testing a new measure, religious–political sophistication (RPS), assessing knowledge of church teaching on particular political issues. Using original measures launched on the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, I show that for evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics, RPS (in conjunction with frequent church attendance) depresses support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Moreover, I argue that assessing RPS this way is not fatally contaminated by unsophisticated respondents interpolating that their clergy must share their political positions. Results suggest religion-and-politics scholars should adopt RPS measures to gain a greater understanding of the unique sources of political communication upon which religious identifiers draw.