Rauchway's scholarship focuses on modern US political, social and economic history, particularly the Progressive Era and the New Deal.

[7] Rauchway is also the author of a novel, Banana Republican, which continues the story of Tom Buchanan, the primary antagonist in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

[16] After the January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot, Rauchway along with over 300 other historians signed an open letter calling for a second impeachment of outgoing President Donald Trump.

According to Rauchway, "There has even been white supremacist violence relating to elections throughout American history, so I don’t want to say that none of that has happened before.

But, I feel this is an important distinction to make for the president himself to incite a white supremacist mob to attack the Capitol with the express purpose of disrupting the election that he lost.