Partisanship and Incumbency in Presidential Elections

Party identification is a standard part of our understanding of presidential voting, but the effects of presidential incumbency on presidential voting have not been recognized in most voting models. Democratic candidates in the twentieth century received 10 percent more of the two-party vote when Democratic incumbents were running for reelection than when Republican incumbents were running. National Election Studies surveys show that the effect of incumbency varies with individual partisanship, with the greatest effect, as expected, among independents. Opposition party identifiers defect at a higher rate than incumbent party identifiers when the incumbent is running for reelection. Even after controlling for retrospective and prospective economic voting, a 6 percent effect is found for incumbency. Incumbency thus conditions the impact of partisanship on presidential voting.     

Presidential and Congressional Vote-Share Equations

Three vote-share equations are estimated and analyzed in this article, one for presidential elections, one for on-term House elections, and one for midterm House elections. The sample period is 1916–2006. Considering the three equations together allows one to test whether the same economic variables affect each and to examine various serial correlation and coattail possibilities. The main conclusions are (1) there is strong evidence that the economy affects all three vote shares and in remarkably similar ways; (2) there is no evidence of any presidential coattail effects on the on-term House elections; (3) there is positive serial correlation in the House vote, which likely reflects a positive incumbency effect for elected representatives; and (4) the presidential vote share has a negative effect on the next midterm House vote share, which is likely explained by a balance argument.     

Congressional Preemption During the George W. Bush Administration

President Bush approved 64 preemption acts during 2001–2005.Fifteen acts were responses to the September 11, 2001, terroristattacks, and five acts extended sunset provisions. The otheracts removed specified powers from states in the fields of banking,commerce, energy, environmental protection, finance, foreigncommerce, health, intellectual property, safety, taxation, telecommunications,and transportation. Only the two Internet taxation prohibitionacts have a major impact on state governments by depriving themof billions of dollars in tax revenues that could be used toexercise their reserved powers. The other acts are minor oneson the periphery of state exercised powers compared to lawsenacted in the period 1964–1999.     

Updating Political Evaluations: Policy Attitudes, Partisanship, and Presidential Assessments

The pervasive influence of partisanship on political evaluations is well known and understood. Whether citizens rely on their policy attitudes has received less attention, especially in the context of how people update and revise their evaluations. This paper focuses on presidential assessments and uses panel data covering three presidencies to model the determinants of opinion change. The results indicate that policy preferences (like partisanship) exert a regular and substantial influence on how citizens update their presidential evaluations.     

THE OBLIGATION TO SPEND: Presidential Impoundment of Congressional Appropriations

Abstract. A recent major controversy has arisen over the habitual impoundment (a term herein defined) of Congressional appropriations by the President through the O. M. B. President Nixon, who made unprecedentedly frequent resort to the practice, claimed both constitutional and statutory authority as well as citing historical precedent. These claims are successively examined, and almost wholly rejected (as indeed they already have been by the federal courts). Rather, impoundment appears as a device whereby President Nixon substituted his own legislative priorities for those of the Congress. The latter therefore strictly limited the practice by statute and sought, as a counterpoise, to improve its own budgetary procedures. This recent reform is in turn evaluated, and the balance of responsibility as between President and Congress in this fiscal area is weighed.     

Negative and Positive Partisanship in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections

Political Behavior - Negative partisanship captures the notion that disdain for the opposing party is not necessarily accompanied by strong in-party attachments. Yet, lack of a theoretical...     

Value Priorities,Partisanship and Electoral Choice: The Neglected Case of the United States

A wealth of comparative scholarship indicates that a transformation in the value priorities of Western publics has been occurring during the last quarter century, and that value-based cleavages are increasingly coming to structure Western political behavior. The United States, however, has been conspicuous by its relative absence from this research enterprise. This paper attempts to partially fill this void in the literature by examining the impact of materialist-postmaterialist value priorities on American political behavior. Using data from the 1972 through 1992 American National Election Studies, we first compare the impact of the value-based cleavage on partisanship and presidential vote choice to that of other relevant sociodemographic variables. These analyses show that the effect of postmaterialism on American political behavior is not negligible. When the parties take distinct stances on postmaterial concerns, value type exerts a noticeable, though not overwhelming, influence on partisanship and vote choice. Further analyses show that the effect of value priorities on electoral behavior is mainly indirect, as they significantly shape attitudes on defense and racial issues, which in turn influence vote choice. Surprisingly, however, value type is not related to attitudes on cultural issues such as abortion and homosexual rights. Thus, although postmaterialism does have some relevance for American political attitudes and behavior, it does not seem to be pertinent to the cultural conflicts that are increasingly salient to American political life.