Economic Effects On State Governors

Abstract

A large body of research on the impact of economic conditions on elections has been amassed. Past research emphasized congressional and presidential elections. The present research extended the question of economic effects to the state level. Are governors held responsible for the economic conditions of their states? The existing studies at the state level all used aggregate data and concluded that states' economies do not affect the fortunes of the governors. The studies inferred that the national economy, not the state economy, affects governors. The present research was a direct test of the aggregate studies using micro-level data from statewide surveys. Strong state economic effects on gubernatorial approval were found in a multivariate model. Furthermore, evaluations of the national economy were almost insignificant in predicting gubernatorial approval.Over the past fifteen years, a large body of research on the impact of economic conditions on elections has been amassed. It is now well established that the electorate responds to economic downturns by punishing the incumbent and the incumbent's party. The earliest studies used aggregate data (Kramer 1971;Stigler 1973;Arcelus and Meltzer 1975) and focused on presidential and congressional elections. In later surveys, researchers began investigating the economic effects with micro-level data (Weatherford 1978;Fiorina 1978;Kinder and Kiewiet 1979;Kiewiet 1981).

Economic Conditions and Voting On Ballot Propositions

“…Chubb's (1988) conclusion that state politicians do not suffer at the polls for state economic conditions is consistent with this, although some of Chubb's results suggest that state economic conditions affect state legislative seat changes. Howell and Vanderleeuw (1990) have demonstrated that state economic conditions do affect gubernatorial approval ratings. In short, evidence of economic voting in state elections in response to state economic conditions is somewhat mixed.…”

“…Until recently, however, economic voting in state elections has received less emphasis. Although economic voting in state elections has become the subject of several studies (Peltzman 1987;Chubb 1988;Howell and Vanderleeuw 1990), virtu-ally no attention has been given to the question of how economic conditions might affect support for state ballot propositions. This is unfortunate, given the prominence of ballot propositions in many American states (Magleby 1984).…”

State Economies and State Taxes: Do Voters Hold Governors Accountable?

“…have a significant [albeit small] impact on gubernatorial election outcomes. "3 More recently, using survey data, Stein (1990), Howell and Vanderleeuw (1990), and Atkeson and Partin (1995) all found substantial effects of the state economic evaluations on gubernatorial voting.4 In short, 'In 1982, when voters were asked "Who is to blame for the state's economic problems? ", 15% named the governor and 18% named both the president and governor (with 25% picking the president and the remaining respondents saying "neither") (Stein 1990, 41).…”

Policy popularity: The Arizona immigration law

“…How well these findings apply to governor approval is somewhat controversial. Some studies show that state unemployment affects a governor's popularity (Leyden and Borrelli 1993;Hansen 1999;Crew et al 2002;Howell and Vanderleeuw 1990;Orth 2001), while others claim that governors have less to fear from their state economies (Chubb 1988;Peltzman 1987).…”