Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson
01 Mar 1970-American Political Science Review (Cambridge University Press)-Vol. 64, Iss: 1, pp 18-34
TL;DR: In this article, four variables are used as predictors of a President's popularity: length of time in office, international events, economic slump, and war, and the number of voters who approve or disapprove of the way the incumbent is handling his job as president.
Abstract: I think [my grandchildren] will be proud of two things. What I did for the Negro and seeing it through in Vietnam for all of Asia. The Negro cost me 15 points in the polls and Vietnam cost me 20.Lyndon B. JohnsonWith tenacious regularity over the last two and a half decades the Gallup Poll has posed to its cross-section samples of the American public the following query, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way (the incumbent) is handling his job as President?” The responses to this curious question form an index known as “Presidential popularity.” According to Richard Neustadt, the index is “widely taken to approximate reality” in Washington and reports about its behavior are “very widely read” there, including, the quotation above would suggest, the highest circles.Plotted over time, the index forms probably the longest continuous trend line in polling history. This study seeks to analyze the behavior of this line for the period from the beginning of the Truman administration in 1945 to the end of the Johnson administration in January 1969 during which time the popularity question was asked some 300 times.Four variables are used as predictors of a President's popularity. These include a measure of the length of time the incumbent has been in office as well as variables which attempt to estimate the influence on his rating of major international events, economic slump and war. To assess the independent impact of each of these variables as they interact in association with Presidential popularity, multiple regression analysis is used as the basic analytic technique.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for the systematic incorporation of political factors that shape the electoral consequences of economic performance, and show that considerations of the ideological image of the government, its electoral base, and the clarity of its political responsibility are essential to understand the effects of economic conditions on voting for or against incumbents.
Abstract: A large literature has demonstrated that such economic factors as growth, inflation, and unemployment affect the popularity of incumbents within many democratic countries. However, cross-national aggregate analyses of "economic voting" show only weak and inconsistent economic effects. We argue for the systematic incorporation of political factors that shape the electoral consequences of economic performance. Multivariate analyses of 102 elections in 19 industrialized democracies are used to estimate the cross-national impact of economic and political factors. The analyses show that considerations of the ideological image of the government, its electoral base, and the clarity of its political responsibility are essential to understanding the effects of economic conditions on voting for or against incumbents.
1,782 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that voters hold the government responsible for economic performance, rewarding or punishing it at the ballot box, regardless of the democracy they vote in, and that good times keep parties in office, bad times cast them out.
Abstract: Economic conditions shape election outcomes in the world's democracies. Good times keep parties in office, bad times cast them out. This proposition is robust, as the voluminous body of research reviewed here demonstrates. The strong findings at the macro level are founded on the economic voter, who holds the government responsible for economic performance, rewarding or punishing it at the ballot box. Although voters do not look exclusively at economic issues, they generally weigh those more heavily than any others, regardless of the democracy they vote in.
1,285 citations
Cites background from "Presidential Popularity from Truman..."
...The earliest research on popularity functions was by Mueller (1970, 1973), and, at least conceptually, it continues to shape current efforts....
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Book•
17 Mar 2008TL;DR: A Contextual Theory of Rational Retrospective Economic Voting: Competency signals and rational retrospective economic voting as mentioned in this paper was proposed to define and measure the economic vote in Western democracies, and it was shown that economic variation and its sources can be traced to economic voting.
Abstract: 1. Introduction Part I. Describing the Economic Vote in Western Democracies: 2. Defining and measuring the economic vote 3. Patterns of retrospective economic voting in western democracies 4. Estimation, measurement, and specification Part II. A Contextual Theory of Rational Retrospective Economic Voting: Competency Signals: 5. Competency signals and rational retrospective economic voting 6. What do voters know about economic variation and its sources? 7. Political control of the economy Part III. A Contextual Theory of Rational Retrospective Economic Voting: Strategic Voting: 8. Responsibility, contention, and the economic vote 9. The distribution of responsibility and economic voting 10. The pattern of contention and the economic vote Part IV. Conclusion and Summary: 11. Conclusion.
713 citations
TL;DR: A quarterly time series measure of trust in the U.S. national government from 1980 to 1997 is developed and the first multivariate time series examination of public trust in government is conducted, finding that negative perceptions of the economy, scandals associated with Congress, and increasing public concern about crime each lead to declining publictrust in government.
Abstract: The study of citizens' trust in the national government has been primarily individual-level, cross-sectional analysis. In the current research, we develop a quarterly time series measure of trust in the U.S. national government from 1980 to 1997 and conduct the first multivariate time series examination of public trust in government. We find that negative perceptions of the economy, scandals associated with Congress, and increasing public concern about crime each lead to declining public trust in government. Declining trust in government in turn leads to less positive evaluations of Congress and reduced support for government action to address a range of domestic policy concerns. These results provide new evidence of the influence of public concern about crime and the centrality of Congress in understanding public evaluations of the national government and new evidence of how declining levels of trust in government may influence elections and domestic policy making.
681 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an explanatory model for the outcomes of midterm congressional elections is developed, which is sufficiently powerful so as to yield honest and accurate pre-election predictions of the national two-party vote in midterm elections.
Abstract: An explanatory model for the outcomes of midterm congressional elections is developed. Midterms are a referendum on the performance of the President and his administration's management of the economy. The explanatory model of midterm congressional elections is sufficiently powerful so as to yield honest and accurate pre-election predictions of the national two-party vote in midterm elections. These predictions have usually outperformed pre-election forecasts based on survey data. The model is extended by considering the translation of votes into seats, models of the electorate as a whole and of the individual voter, and the causes of the off-year loss by the President's party.
639 citations
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01 Jan 1960431 citations