Constituent Approval and Presidential Support: The Mediating Effect of Party and Chamber

• Date: 01 March 2021
• Author: Jeffrey E. Cohen,Brandon Rottinghaus
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912919866511
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919866511

Political Research Quarterly

2021, Vol. 74(1) 76 –89

© 2019 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912919866511

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Article

There is general agreement that presidential approval

affects congressional support for the president. A fre-

quently cited linkage mechanism between approval and

support is reelection—legislators’ support will covary

with constituent approval to maximize their reelection

prospects. The electoral connection theory assumes legis-

lators will be responsive to the opinions of constituents in

their districts. Yet, considerable disagreement in the lit-

erature exists over the impact of approval on support.

Some studies find a positive relationship between

approval and support (Barrett and Eshbaugh-Soha 2007;

Beckmann 2010; Bond, Fleisher, and Wood 2003; Brace

and Hinckley 1992; Canes-Wrone and De Marchi 2002;

Edwards 1976, 1977, 1980, 1989, 1997; Lebo and

O’Geen 2011; Ostrom and Simon 1985; Rivers and Rose

1985), but others do not, or at best, find a modest relation-

ship (Bond and Fleisher 1980, 1984, 1990; Bond, Fleisher,

and Northrup 1988; Borrelli and Simmons 1993, Cohen

et al. 2000; Collier and Sullivan 1995; Fett 1994; Peterson

1990). One study even finds a negative relationship

(Lockerbie, Borrelli, and Hedger 1998).

Two challenges exist in trying to resolve the disagree-

ment about the effect of approval on support. First,

although most agree that the approval–support relationship

may vary with contextual factors, few studies investigate

whether contextual factors moderate the approval–support

relationship. One relevant study, Dwyer and Treul (2012),

demonstrates on Senate data that opposition members are

more responsive to state-level presidential approval than

co-partisans. There are good reasons for such party asym-

metry. Co-partisans will support the president even when

the president is not popular because doing so may help

their reelection chances (Cohen 2011; Lebo and O’Geen

2011). Opposition legislators face a different incentive

mix, with their party pulling them to oppose the president,

but reelection concerns pushing them to support the presi-

dent when he is popular among their constituents. Thus,

opposition members should be more responsive to constit-

uent-level approval than co-partisans. Second, testing the

approval–support hypothesis requires approval data for

member constituencies. Constituency-level approval data

for the Senate (at the state level) are rare and such data are

nearly nonexistent for the House. One contribution of our

paper is the use of a relatively new method for estimating

subnational opinion, multiple regression poststratification

(MRP).

866511PRQXXX10.1177/1065912919866511Political Research QuarterlyCohen and Rottinghaus

research-article2019

1Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA

2University of Houston, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brandon Rottinghaus, Department of Political Science, University of

Houston, 3551 Cullen Boulevard, Room 447, Philip Guthrie Hoffman

Hall, Houston, TX 77204, USA.

Email: bjrottinghaus@uh.edu

Constituent Approval and Presidential

Support: The Mediating Effect of Party

and Chamber

Jeffrey E. Cohen1 and Brandon Rottinghaus2

Abstract

Approval affects congressional support for the president, with a reelection motivation the main linkage mechanism.

Yet, the literature has not fully explored this linkage due to theoretical barriers and serious data limitations. Using

a new theory and novel data, we argue that the impact of the reelection motivation should vary with contextual

factors. This paper identifies two such factors rarely explored together: member party and chamber. We hypothesize

that opposition party legislators will be more responsive to constituent approval than co-partisans, but this partisan

differential will hold only for the Senate, not the House. We test our hypothesis on House and Senate data, from

2006 through 2012, using multiple regression poststratification (MRP) to measure district and state approval of the

president. The analysis finds support for the chamber differences hypothesis that has implications for partisanship and

representation.

Keywords

president, congress, approval, legislation