Rachel Blum

Rachel Blum is an Associate Professor in the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center and the Department of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. Her research examines how political parties interact with and shape U.S. politics. She also specializes in political methodology, with a particular focus on computational methods to analyze large datasets, text-as-data and political networks.

In her first book, How the Tea Party Captured the GOP: Insurgent Factions in American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2020), Blum uses a variety of original datasets and analytic techniques to explain how a faction like the Tea Party was able to take over a major political party. Her second book, Cooperating Factions: A Network Analysis of Party Divisions in U.S. Presidential Nominations (with Hans Noel at Cambridge University Press, 2024) traces party leader endorsements in nominations to detect longstanding divisions within the parties. Dr. Blum's ongoing research projects examine the role of party factions in both the U.S. and abroad. Her other research interests include Congressional communication, political activism, and disability politics. She has also published in outlets including the British Journal of Political Science, Political Science Research & Methods, Political Behavior, Political Research Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, PS: Political Science & Politics, and Election Law Journal.

Professor Blum received her Ph.D. in 2016 and her M.A. in 2013 from Georgetown University, and her B.A. in 2010 from Patrick Henry College. Prior to her appointment at the University of Oklahoma she held a faculty appointment at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Publications:

Rachel M. Blum, "How the Tea Party Captured the GOP: Insurgent Factions in American Politics" (September 2020: University of Chicago Press).

Rachel M. Blum and Christopher S. Parker, “Trump-ing Foreign Affairs: The Role of Status Threat in Mass Foreign Policy Preferences,” Perspectives on Politics 17, no. 3 (2019): 737-755.

Sarah E. Croco, Elizabeth Suhay, Rachel Blum, Lilliana Mason, Hans Noel, Jonathan Ladd, and Michael A. Bailey, “Student-Run Exit Polls 101,” PS: Political Science & Politics 52, no. 2 (2019): 361-366.

Solomon Messing, Patrick Van Kessel, Adam Hughes, Nick Judd, and Rachel M. Blum, “Partisan Conflict and Congressional Outreach,” a Pew Research Center Report (February 2017).

Rachel M. Blum and Clyde Wilcox, “A Tangled Web: Religion and the Regime in the US,” in Religion and Regimes: Support, Separation, and Opposition, eds.Ted Jelen and Tehran Tamadonfar (Lexington: Lexington Books, 2013).

Research Interests:

American Politics, political parties, Congress, political activism, statistical methodology, political networks, text-based analysis.