Presidential “Going Bipartisan” and the Consequences for Institutional Approval

Abstract

Although scholars have described how legislative efforts to spur bipartisanship fare, we have little knowledge about how bipartisanship can affect political opinions with their rhetoric or the most impactful message for opponents to respond. Using President Obama’s bipartisan speech to the GOP House Issues Conference in 2010, we look at the effect of the one-sided message on President Obama’s favorability rating. We then pair this message with three competing messages of varying partisanship to determine the degree of change (if any). The results show that the President’s one-sided message is effective, but if met with a competitive bipartisan message from the opposition party, approval of the President by all partisan groups increases even more. However, if the President’s bipartisan message frame is met using a partisan message from the opposition party, the President’s approval declines among all partisans, and approval of the Republicans in Congress increases but only for Republican identifiers.