What Determines a Governor's Popularity?

Abstract

Modern American state governorships have great formal policymaking authority, but, like the presidency, they also possess various informal powers to influence policymakers and policymaking. Among the most important of these informal powers is a governor's popularity with the public. Efforts to explain variation in gubernatorial popularity have yielded mixed results, in part because of limited data on governors' approval ratings and underspecified models. We assess the determinants of gubernatorial popularity that fall along both a national-state dimension and an economicpolitical dimension using the new U.S. Officials Job Approval Ratings dataset. Our results suggest that the proper focus of gubernatorial popularity research should be to distinguish not between its national and state influences but between its economic and political influences, as both national and state unemployment rates are central to explaining public assessments of governors in our models.State governments experienced a substantial resurgence during the final decades of the 20th century, which was evident in many areas. For example, the New Federalism initiatives of Presidents Nixon and Reagan shifted responsibility for education, welfare, and health programs from the national government to the states (Nathan 1983). State government innovations in welfare reform became the model for revamping the national system in the 1990s, allowing greater state discretion in designing and implementing welfare policy. The performance of state economies has become less dependent on the performance of the national economy and more subject to manipulation by state policymakers (Brace 1993). Additionally the institutions of state government have been strengthened across the board to meet these new challenges and responsibilities (Bowman and Kearney 1986).At the center of these changes are state governors. The office of the chief executive in most states has been transformed fundamentally over the past

Public and Partisan Opinions of the Speaker of the House

“…However, while the economy has a substantial impact on public opinion, it does not affect public opinion uniformly across public institutions and offices (Chubb 1988;Crew and Weiher 1996;King and Cohen 2005;Peltzman 1987). …”

“…Economic indicators provide a baseline for the public's generic sentiment toward government and public officials (Caldeira and Gibson 1992;Durr, Gilmour, and Wolbrecht 1997;Kernell 1978;King and Cohen 2005;Mishler and Sheehan 1993;Ostrom and Simon 1985;Rudolph 2002;Stimson 2004). In each of these studies, scholars have noted the important influence of economic performance on public evaluations of job performance.…”

Ethnic Change, Concern over Immigration, and Approval of State Government

“…A corpus of studies demonstrates that gubernatorial elections and approval are influenced by national and state economic conditions (e.g. unemployment and inflation) and perceptions (Carsey and Wright 1998;Chubb 1988;Hansen 1999;Howell and Vanderleeuw 1990;King and Cohen 2005;Niemi, Stanley, and Vogel 1995;Peltzman 1987;Svoboda 1995).…”

Legislature Size and Non-Elite Populations Theory and Corroborating Evidence

“…smaller legislatures) compromise the quality of the representative/constituent relationship (Lee & Oppenheimer, 1999;Oppenheimer, 1996), which leads to less citizen contact (Hibbing & Alford, 1990), and less popular politicians (Binder, Maltzman, & Sigelman, 1998; on governors see King & Cohen, 2005; on state legislators see Squire, 1993). The U.S. Senate has been a frequent testing ground for work on constituency size because the number of representatives from each of the 50 American states is constant, but populations fluctuate wildly.…”