[4][5] Foley graduated from Yale in 1983 with a degree in History and from Columbia University School of Law in 1986.
[4][14][15] An election law scholar, he had been studying closely contested state results to try to predict which might be challenged legally.
[5][14] He found that the size of the shift varied by state, but that it was consistent enough to potentially change the outcome of a presidential election.
[5] In 2013 he published a paper about the phenomenon, A Big Blue Shift: Measuring an Asymmetrically Increasing Margin of Litigation.
[17] According to The Philadelphia Inquirer he believes "raising awareness of the blue shift can help inoculate people against unfounded claims.
[14] Foley in August 2020 said expected increases in numbers of votes cast by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic could affect the size and direction of the shift in the November 2020 US presidential election.