Public Opinion and Democratic Party Ownership of Prosperity

Abstract

Recently, there has been renewed interest in the question of party ownership of economic prosperity, which Petrocik argued was a performance issue subject to the flow of events over which administrations have no control. Using Gallup Polls administered between 1955 and 2013, we investigate public opinion on whether Republicans or Democrats would do a better job of keeping the country prosperous. Using error correction analysis, we test political and economic variables to assess the political legacy of the Great Depression and New Deal. Our analysis shows that Democrats owned prosperity before the 1980s, but have since lost momentum in public opinion on the issue. New generations have no personal memories of the Great Depression or the ensuing partisan realignment. The Baby Boomer and so-called X generations, instead, experienced the stagflation of the 1970s during their young adulthood, frequently associated with the Carter Administration. A persistent legacy of the Great Depression, however, is an asymmetry of public preferences insofar as adverse economic conditions are concerned. We find that rising unemployment yields more public support for Democrats than Republicans as the preferred party steward of economic prosperity.