Expertise/Areas of Interest
An expert in the field of American national politics, Gary Jacobson is an authority on the United States Congress. He focuses his research on Congress and congressional elections, California elections, public opinion, campaign finance, and party politics. His current research is on the electoral basis of partisan polarization in Congress.

Topics of Publication
He is the author of Money in Congressional Elections; The Politics of Congressional Elections (currently in its 5th edition); and The Electoral Origins of Divided Government; and co-author of Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections, American Parties in Decline, and The Logic of American Politics.. He has also published numerous articles on topics including the impact of broadcast campaigning on electoral outcomes, patterns of campaign contributions, political action committees, and congressional ethics.

Jacobson has recently completed a research paper on "The 1994 House Elections in Perspective," which examines the results of the 1994 House elections and whether or not the Republican victory can be explained within the framework of currently accepted ideas about congressional elections.

Background
Gary Jacobson joined the UCSD faculty in 1979 as a professor of political science. He has also taught at Trinity College, Hartford; U.C. Riverside; Yale; and Stanford. During 1990-91 he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

He has served on the Council of the American Political Science Association and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1985 through 1993 he served on the Board of Overseers of National Election Studies, which designs the biennial election surveys conducted by the University of Michigan Center for Political Studies.