John Sides studies political behavior in American and comparative politics. He is an author of Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and The Battle for the Meaning of America, The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Election, and Campaigns and Election: Rules, Reality, Strategy, Choice. He has published articles in various scholarly journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics. His current book project focuses on fiscal politics in the U.S.

He helped found and serves as publisher of The Monkey Cage, a site about political science and politics at the Washington Post. He has also written for such outlets as FiveThirtyEight, the Boston Review, Bloomberg View, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. He serves as Research Advisor to the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group and a member of the National Budgeting Roundtable.