Dr. Eric R. Schmidt

Eric R. Schmidt (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2021) joined Concordia College as a Political Science Teaching Fellow in August 2021. His research explores the dynamics of long-term partisan change in the United States – with particular attention to the distinct (and contradictory) ways that citizens understand political parties, party coalitions, and elections. At present, Dr. Schmidt is drafting a book manuscript based on his dissertation, and his previous work (including several collaborative projects) has been published in Political Behavior, P.S.: Political Science & Politics, and the Journal of Political Institutions & Political Economy. At Concordia, he teaches introductory and upper-level classes on U.S. politics. Drawing on his work for the Indiana Political Analysis Workshop (IPAW) in summer 2020, he plans to directly engage students in high-impact research on the challenges facing representative government in the United States.