She specializes in American Politics. Her particular interests are in African-American Politics, Public Opinion and Political Behavior, Political Communication, and Political Parties. Her work has been published in The American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Black Studies, PS: Political Science and Politics, Political Behavior, Public Opinion Quarterly, National Political Science Review, and the Journal of Politics. In addition, she is the author of Race, Republicans, and the Return of the Party of Lincoln (2007, University of Michigan Press), which examines the circumstances under which political parties can use racial symbols to reshape their images among the electorate and the co-editor of African-American Political Psychology: Identity, Opinion, and Action in the Post-Civil Rights Era (forthcoming, with Ismail K. White, Palgrave Macmillan Press).