Presidential Preferences Research Articles

Assessing Candiate Preference Polling and Other Survey Research in Nicaragua, 1989-90: Comments on Anderson, and Bischoping and Schuman

Both Katherine Bischoping and Howard Schuman (1992) and Leslie Anderson in her comment here (1994b) note the confusion engendered by numerous and hotly debated preelection presidential preference polls conducted in the months before Nicaragua's 25 February 1990 national election. Certain polls (some overtly and publicly associated with opposition forces) predicted a comfortable victory for Violeta Barrios de Chamorro's National Opposition Union (UNO). In striking contrast, other polls conducted by experienced foreign survey research organizations, by nongovernmental Nicaraguan research groups, and by the Sandinista National Liberation Front's (FSLN) own pollsters wrongly predicted that FSLN incumbent Daniel Ortega Saavedra would easily win reelection. An important casualty of these poll wars was confidence among certain audiences in the very reliability of public opinion polling in Nicaragua and, even more broadly, in Latin America. Although relatively novel in Nicaragua until quite recently, surveys by scholars and public opinion research organizations had proliferated throughout Central America and Latin America in recent decades. Yet the highly publicized failure to predict an important election outcome by a number of sophisticated and experienced pollsters seemed by implication to call this entire methodology into question, at least in the region. The controversy presented by the AJPS includes some of the calmer and more reasoned efforts by scholars to understand the nature and causes of the striking discrepancies among the Nicaraguan preelection

Presidential preferences for inflation versus unemployment

The notion that unemployment and inflation are determined by policy set to optimize a given objective function is fairly well established. This paper attempts to estimate the parameters of a quadratic loss function from the revealed preferences of policy makers. The results suggest that policy makers' preferences do not conform to the party cleavage model. Rather, policy makers, regardless of party, are more likely to adopt a balanced view toward inflation and unemployment.

Presidential Influence in the Policymaking Process

ince Richard Neustadt's pathbreaking Presidential Power was published in 1960, researchers have attempted to describe and measure presidential power, or more specifically, influence (Edwards 1980a, 1976; Bond and Fleisher 1984; Rivers and Rose 1985). Edwards (1989) has provided the most extensive empirical investigation of presidential influence. He measures influence as the congruence of presidential positions with congressional votes and then correlates this indicator of success with the resource popular support. We examine presidential influence in the broader context of the multiple roles of the president in policymaking. We analyze the impact of distinct measures of preferences, resources, and persuasion on activities marking sequential stages of the policy process using calendar years 1953-85 as the unit of analysis. We define the central aspect of influence as the conversion of preferences into government outputs. To examine influence, we first extend previous research by identifying a set of indicators of government activity for each stage in the policy process. Second, we examine the extent to which presidential preferences influence these government actions. We assume that such influence is a function of presidential resources. That is, relationships of influence are conditioned by popular and elite support and responsiveness. Third, we incorporate a preliminary single indicator of persuasion into the model. Persuasion is expected to act as an additional presidential resource of the conversion of preferences into governmental actions, a linkage that is also conditioned by resources. The analysis examines direct, indirect, and conditional relationships that describe the president's influence in policy making. As a heuristic, the policy process provides the context for

Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification

Movement of party identification, both within and across generations, is increasingly seen as responsive to current policy preferences. We explore cross-generational change using three-wave parent-offspring data. The results strongly support the revised view of a more malleable partisanship influenced by offspring issue preferences. Nonetheless, parents play a major role in determining the initial political direction of their offspring and continue to play a significant though reduced role in the over-time development of their adult children. The results are similar for presidential preferences, though parental influence is entirely channeled through offspring partisanship.

PRESIDENTIAL POLICY PREFERENCES AND SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENT SUCCESS

Presidential appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court are major constitutional events. Few studies assess whether this political process benefits presidents with appointment opportunities. This article estimates the policy success of presidents since Eisenhower in appointing favorable justices on the racial equality issues. Previous research uses the president's party affiliation as an indirect measure of presidential preferences. This research examines the president's policy stance more directly by using presidential public statements on racial equality issues. An issue specific measure of presidential preferences shows that presidents have been more successful in appointing like‐minded justices than reliance on presidential party would suggest. Regression estimates of the justices aggregate voting record on racial equality cases are robust even in light of other controls. The implications for democratic theory and future research are discussed.

Moral Conservatism and the 1984 Presidential Election

Moral conservatism asserts traditional absolutes in lifestyle, personal relations, and sexuality. Many evaluations of moral conservatism's political influence focus on the New Christian Right. This study assesses moral conservatism among voters directly and its effects on presidential preferences in a causal model with data from a city-wide survey. Moral conservatism effects are significant and contributed to Reagan's victory. Although weaker than race effects, moral conservatism is at least as politically consequential as gender. Moral conservatism suppresses gender effects and mediates the political effects of age, education, and church membership. The influence of moral conservatism is greatest among older, less educated voters belonging to churches. Political implications are discussed.

Presidents, Supreme Court justices, and racial equality cases: 1954?1984

This research assesses the policy success of presidents since Eisenhower in their appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court in racial equality cases from 1954–1984. The research examines presidential preferences in a much more detailed and sensitive manner than previous research. While past research has used presidential party as a measure of the policy preferences of presidents, we examine policy preferences in a very direct manner. Specifically, the preferences of presidents on racial equality issues are gauged by their public policy statements. These statements serve to tap the degree of liberalness, the level of attention, and the level of concern with judicial actions in racial equality matters. The results demonstrate that presidents have been much more successful in appointing like-minded justices than is suggested by the existing literature. In addition, it is shown that prior judicial experience is not related to presidential success. This is discussed in terms of the perennial debate over the political control of the Supreme Court and the congruence of Court policy making with majoritarian values.

"Staying Private": Gaining Congressional Support for Unpublicized Presidential Preferences on Roll Call Votes

Presidents are known to have strong incentives to publicize their positions on legislation before the Congress. This paper examines the obverse of that proposition: that under appropriate circumstances, presidents have strong incentives not to publicize their positions. Data from the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies uncover 36 instances of unpublicized presidential preferences. The paper rejects apolitical explanations for their existence, and then presents four political reasons why presidents might avoid publicly expressing their views. Tests of inferences about congressional voting behavior based on those reasons are formulated, and the findings conform to the expectations. On the basis of those findings, I argue for additional research that examines various facets of the process by which presidents influence the Congress.

Boundary Maintenance, Social-Political Views, and Presidential Preference among High and Low Fundamentalists

Scientific claims to a positive relationship between religious fundamentalism and conservative social and political beliefs are argued to be generally unwarranted on both conceptual and empirical grounds. A conceptualization of fundamentalism in terms of Biblical commitment largely uninformed by modem critical Biblical scholarship leads to identification of conditions under which fundamentalist religious beliefs ought to be differentially associated with other social and political beliefs generally identified as conservative. A sample of high and low fundamentalists were compared in terms of identified boundary maintenance beliefs on which high fundamentalists and low fundamentalists predictably differed. However, on a variety of other social and political views, not identified as boundary maintenance beliefs, high and low fundamentalists did not differ. High fundamentalists were more likely to select as a presidential candidate the person seen as most near their own religious beliefs even though religious beliefs per se do not significantly predict presidential preference.

Appropriations Decisions as a Bilateral Bargaining Game between President and Congress

In this essay we model appropriations decisions as products of a bilateral bargaining game between a reelection-minded president and Congress. The findings bear out the expectation that the two sides jointly pursue a strategy of accommodation. In awarding appropriations, Congress takes into account the president's preferences embodied in the OMB's budget requests; these requests in turn reflected expectations of congressional action. The evidence also reveals that several important exogenous political and economic variables influence both executive and legislative appropriations decisions.

Representativeness

Iowa caucus attenders and state convention delegates in 1980 were similar in their presidential preferences and political opinions and displayed patterns similar to those found in other studies of leaders and followers. However, Democratic leaders were slightly more representative of their followers on measures of candidate preference, which we attribute to their use of a proportional representation rule for delegate selection. They were also closer in social representation, which apparently follows from their use of affirmative action rules and other guidelines. Republican activists tend to be higher in social status than Democratic activists, but not on every measure. The Republican leaders were somewhat closer to their followers in representativeness of opinions than were Democratic leaders and followers. We observed that Democratic delegates were the most liberal group, followed by Democratic caucus attenders, then Republican caucus attenders, and (least liberal) Republican delegates.

Prenomination Candidate Choice and General Election Behavior: Iowa Presidential Activists in 1980

Based on a two-wave survey of presidential activists in Iowa, this study examines the tension parties face between the nomination and general election phases of the presidential selection process. Activists who supported the losing contender for their party's nomination tended to participate less in the fall presidential campaign than supporters of the nomination winners. Kennedy supporters were as active in state and local races as Carter supporters among the Democrats surveyed, but Bush partisans were less active on behalf of the GOP Senate candidate in Iowa than were supporters of Ronald Reagan. These effects of prenomination presidential preference persist when controls for ideology, attachment to the party organization, and past levels of activity are imposed. The data indicate the 1980 prenomination contest had negative consequences for both presidential nomineesconsequences best understood as linked to personal loyalty to the losing candidates, rather than to ideological preferences.

Selective Evaluation and Recall During the 1980 Reagan‐Carter Debate1

To assess the effects of the 1980 Reagan‐Carter presidential debate, samples of college students were surveyed in the laboratory and in the field before and after watching the debate. Responses were consistent across groups, indicating that both selective recall and selective evaluation occurred. The plurality of subjects in both groups (i.e., field and laboratory) were better at recalling their preferred candidate's arguments than those of the opposition. In addition, judgments of who won were biased in favor of predebate presidential preference. Commitment was not significantly related to either process (i.e., selective evaluation or selective recall), indicating that both strongly committed and weakly committed individuals may selectively encode and selectively evaluate incoming political information. These findings are discussed in light of the timing of the debate.

Construct similarity, self-meaningfulness, and presidential preference.

Construct similarity, self-meaningfulness, and presidential preference.

Construct similarity, self-meaningfulness, and presidential preference.

Construct similarity, self-meaningfulness, and presidential preference.

A False Consensus Bias in 1980 Presidential PReferences

A False Consensus Bias in 1980 Presidential PReferences

POLICY PREFERENCES OF JUSTICES AND PRESIDENTS

Focusing on the issue of civil rights, this study examines the relationship between policy preferences of presidents and the votes of the Supreme Court justices they appointed. Through content analysis of presidential statements, relatively systematic measures of civil rights policy views for five recent presidents were obtained and compared with the voting records on civil rights of justices they appointed to the Supreme Court. The findings suggest that although a correspondence exists between presidential preferences and judicial votes, presidents have been only moderately successful in appointing justices whose votes reflect presidential preferences.

College Students' Values and Presidential Preference in the 1980 Election

Rokeach (1973) proposed a model of political ideologies based on the extent to which people value freedom and equality. Socialists are defined as persons who value freedom and equality highly, capitalists place a high value on freedom but a low value on equality, communists place a low value on freedom but a high value on equality, and facists place a low value on both freedom and equality. In the United States, liberals are predicted to have the socialist value pattern and conservatives are predicted to have the capitalist value pattern. Rokeach (1973) successfully tested these predictions during the 1968 U.S. presidential election, and this study attempted to replicate these findings during the 1980 election. The subjects were 423 students (235 female, 188 male) at a Southern university. They ranged from 16 to 59 yr. of age (M = 19 8 yr.). There were 361 whites, 52 blzcks, and 10 students who did not indicate their race. These subjects completed Rokeach's Value Survey and indicated their presidential candidate preference during September or October of 1980. Eleven subjects were dropped from the study because they failed to indicate preferences for a candidate. Reagan was preferred by 175 subjects, Carter by 172 subjects, and Anderson by 65 subjects. Rankings for each of the 36 values on the Value Survey were converted to z-scores (Hays, 1967) and entered into a one-way analysis of variance, with preference for a candidate as the independent variable. Where significant Fs occurred (p < .05), Tukey B tests were used to compare individual means. If the Rokeach model is correct supporters of conservative candidates should value equalicy less than supporters of liberal candidates but no differences should exist for values placed on freedom. The results are consistent with this model. Reagan supporters (M = -.47) place less value on equality than supporters of Anderson (M = -.18) or Carter (M = M.20). Supporters of Anderson (M = .39), Carter (M = .40), and Reagan (M = .42) do not differ significantly in their valuing of freedom. Among the other 34 values, Carter's supporters value a world at peace and happiness more rhan do Reagan's supporters. Anderson's supporters value being imaginative more, but obtaining salvation less, rhan supporters of Caner and Reagan.

Representational roles and representative/constituency agreement: The democratic national party convention of 1976

Representational Role Theory is applied to presidential nominating conventions. Delegates to the 1976 Democratic convention are compared to the voters who selected their slates in 10 key presidential preference primaries. Because of party rule restrictions on delegates' behavior, representational roles are not pertinent to what is typically the most important decision of the convention, the first ballet vote for the party's presidential nominee. However, role orientations appear to be useful in understanding two other sets of decisions: (1) the creation of the party platform and (2) voting for the party's presidential nominee in the event that the nomination requires more than one ballot. Other than the first ballot, the Delegate role is not very popular among convention delegates.

Selective Exposure in a Presidential Campaign Contingent on Certainty and Salience

Rather than concluding that “no general psychological preference for supportive information exists,” as Sears and Freedman (1967) do, this paper asserts that their review addresses a misstated research question. The primary issue is not whether such a preference always occurs, but under what conditions selective exposure occurs. Selective exposure is redefined without a defensive avoidance assumption, so it is called supportive selection. Supportive information is assumed to require less cognitive concentration and effort than the counterarguing required for nonsupportive information. The redefined supportive selection also emphasizes the social context of the individual. The long-term social conditions also affect supportive selection. The analysis concentrates on testing the contingent conditions of certainty and salience. The most consistent results are found for a presidential preference by certainty interaction. Depending upon which candidate voters support, the more certain they are, the more likely voters are to select supportive information. Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.—Alan Watts