Chryl N. Laird

Chryl N. Laird

Speaker Profile

Chryl Laird was appointed Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland in 2021, having previously held the role of Marvin H. Greene Jr. Assistant Professor of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College. She studies American Politics with a specialization in race and ethnic politics and political psychology and in 2018 was awarded the Karofsky Encore Lecture for excellence in teaching. Her book Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Political Behavior (with Ismail White), examines how Black partisanship to the Democratic party is maintained through social networks and political norms. Her research and commentary has been featured on a number of media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, and FiveThirtyEight. She tweets at @chryllaird. 

Books1

Ideas4

    Chryl Laird PUP Speaks: Chryl Laird on the social experiment that helped her understand Black voters Steadfast Democrats author Chryl N. Laird explains what a social experiment taught her about the way group behavior of Black voters is shaped by social networks.  Read More
    Ideas Podcast | Episode 1 | Why are Blacks Democrats? | Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird Why are Blacks Democrats? Black Americans are by far the most unified racial group in American electoral politics, with 80 to 90 percent identifying as Democrats—a surprising figure given that nearly a third now also identify as ideologically conservative, up from less than 1... Read More
    African American children in front of a voter registration table. Why are Blacks Democrats? African Americans are Democrats. Since 1968 no Republican presidential candidate has received more than 13% of the African American vote and surveys of African Americans regularly show that upwards of 80% of African Americans self-identify as Democra... Read More
    Hands pattern The roots of Black political unity On December 12, 2017, the state of Alabama held a special general election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The race, which had Republican Roy Moore running against Democrat Doug Jones, had already captured national... Read More