Economic and Referendum Voting: A Comparison of Gubernatorial and Senatorial Elections

Abstract

We compare vote choice in senate and gubernatorial elections from 1986 and 1990 with two retrospective voting hypotheses: the national referendum hypothesis and an economic retrospective hypothesis. Despite the similarities between the office of U.S. senator and governor (same constituency, high levels of campaign spending, highly visible candidates, etc.), we find that different types of retrospective evaluations are used with respect to vote choice. As members of the national legislative branch, senators' fortunes are linked to the success or failures of the president. In contrast, governors, as state executives, are held accountable for perceived state economic conditions, while senators escape unscathed from the same general economic evaluations. These findings shed some light on the nature of vote choice in a political system complicated by federalism and separation of powers.

Are Governors Responsible for the State Economy? Partisanship, Blame, and Divided Federalism

“…Table 1 summarizes the results of several influential studies; the inconsistency is striking. Some studies have found that state economic variables affect gubernatorial approval (Atkeson and Partin 1995;Jacobson 2006;Niemi et al 1995); others have found that they do not (Crew and Weiher 1996;Peltzman 1987); and still others have found the effect to be contingent on some other factor (Ebeid and Rodden 2006;Leyden and Borrelli 1995;Stein 1990). These inconsistencies may arise from a widespread but implicit assumption that if local conditions matter, all voters will objectively take equal account (or non-account) of them when evaluating the governor-an assumption at serious odds with the work on partisanship and bias referenced above.…”

“…In a world of objective, informed citizens, raw economic indicators would predict most (or all) of the variance in this measure. Such objectivity seems to be assumed in three of the most widely read studies dealing with gubernatorial approval-that is, Atkeson and Partin (1995), Carsey and Wright (1998), and Stein (1990). In these three studies, the authors attempt to learn whether governors are held accountable for statelevel economic conditions; in all three studies, the authors measure state economic conditions using respondent evaluations of the state economy rather than using raw macroeconomic indicators.…”

“…2 Atkeson and Partin (1995) assign all economic responsibility to governors; Carsey and Wright (1998) argue that presidents bear national economic responsibility while governors are responsible only for the state's economic health relative to the nation's.…”

Issue Benefactors or Issue Victims? Ballot Initiative Influence on the Vote for California Governor, 1982-1998

“…But with the availability of media exit polls and other individual-level surveys that reveal voter preferences and perceptions, a wider range of voting determinants have been identified. 3 Over the past decade, the voting behavior literature has verified a number of key influences on gubernatorial vote choice beyond economic evaluations, including party identification, ideology, presidential popularity, and attitudes toward specific hot-button issues such as abortion and gay marriage (Atkeson and Partin 1995;Carsey and Wright 1998;Cook, Jelen, and Wilcox 1994;Ensley and Bucy 2009;Howell and Sims 1993;Svoboda 1995).…”

“…By contrast, "data on state economic conditions are relatively easy to obtain, and longitudinal analysis information on incumbency and presidential popularity is readily available" (Cook, Jelen, and Wilcox 1994, 188). Although media exit polls allow for individual-level analyses, they are not without their problems (see Atkeson and Partin 1998;Mitofsky and Brennan 1993). 4 Nicholson (2005) analyzed a third issue, affirmative action, but in the context of the 1996 presidential campaign.…”