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In this article, we reassess the findings of where presidents visit during midterm elections from 1954 to 2010, with data that, for the first time, segments presidential visits into 'rallies, 'fundraisers, and 'virtual' campaigning. On one hand, our findings reflect what others have found--when aggregating all visits together, the total Electoral College votes and the previous state-level winning percentage of the president in the state affect the probability of a visit by the president. However, presidents are more likely to visit states for a 'rally' when they are more popular, and the number of competitive races in the state is greater. Presidents are more likely to host a fundraiser in a state when the number of Electoral College votes is higher but are less likely to visit when there are fewer competitive races. The results suggest that there is value in knowing the purpose for which a president visited a state in a midterm election., Presidential travel is designed to close the gap between the institution and the public (Ellis 2008). Elections present a formal occasion for presidents to travel (King and Ragsdale 1998; Kernell [...]

People typically have intense feelings about politics. Therefore, it was no surprise that the campaign and eventual election of Barack Obama were highly anticipated and emotionally charged events, making it and the emotion experienced afterward a useful situation in which to replicate prior research showing that people typically overestimate the intensity and duration of their future affective states. Consequently, it was expected that Obama supporters and McCain supporters might overestimate the intensity of their affective responses to the outcome of the election. Data showed that while McCain supporters underestimated how happy they would be following the election, Obama supporters accurately predicted how happy they would be following the election. These data provide descriptive information on the accuracy of people's predicted reactions to the 2008 U.S. presidential election. The findings are discussed in the context of the broad literature and this specific and unique event. DOI 10.2466/07.PR0.107.6.837-846

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00443.x Byline: Benn Eifert (1), Edward Miguel (2), Daniel N. Posner (3) Abstract: This article draws on data from over 35,000 respondents in 22 public opinion surveys in 10 countries and finds strong evidence that ethnic identities in Africa are strengthened by exposure to political competition. In particular, for every month closer their country is to a competitive presidential election, survey respondents are 1.8 percentage points more likely to identify in ethnic terms. Using an innovative multinomial logit empirical methodology, we find that these shifts are accompanied by a corresponding reduction in the salience of occupational and class identities. Our findings lend support to situational theories of social identification and are consistent with the view that ethnic identities matter in Africa for instrumental reasons: because they are useful in the competition for political power. Author Affiliation: (1)University of California, Berkeley (2)University of California, Berkeley and NBER (3)University of California, Los Angeles Article note: Benn Eifert is a Graduate Student in Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 508-1 Evans Hall #3880, Berkeley, CA 94720 (benn@econ.berkeley.edu). Edward Miguel is Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 508-1 Evans Hall #3880, Berkeley, CA 94720 (emiguel@econ.berkeley.edu). Daniel N. Posner is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472 (dposner@polisci.ucla.edu).

We operationalize three dimensions of religion--religious affiliation, religious commitment, and religious belief--to offer a detailed analysis of how religion affects presidential approval ratings. Using data from the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 American National Election Studies, we demonstrate that operationalizing religion as a rudimentary Protestant-Catholic affiliation dichotomy masks its influence on presidential approval. We find that religious affiliation, even when measured more precisely than with a Protestant-Catholic dichotomy, contributes less to models of presidential approval than do measures of religious commitment and (especially) orthodoxy of religious belief. Keywords: presidential approval; religion and politics; evangelical Protestants; religious commitment

The more important Vladimir Putin is said to be for mobilizing support for the Russian regime, the greater the potential void when he leaves office. This article empirically tests the impact that Vladimir Putin has had on public opinion through an original analysis of New Russia Barometer data. After reviewing the multiple roles of a president, it reports how the Russian public has evaluated President Putin's popularity during his period in office. It then tests the extent to which this evaluation has added to support for the Federation regime. Based on these findings, it draws conclusions about the impact of succession on the consolidation of the institutions of the Russian Federation.

A tidal wave of anti-Americanism abroad, sagging presidential poll numbers in the State, and ill-conceived war with Iraq, all conspired to put a halt on the first-term revolution of Bush administration in foreign affairs. The daunting challenge, before the Bush administration in the post-revolutionary era, is to rally the international community behind the lofty strategic goal of spreading democracy, but through the use of more universally accepted methods.

The voters in America think the Democrats are better on central issues of the economy, jobs, health care, and education, but they continue to return Republicans to power. The political behavior of millions of working-class Americans, who are not influenced by ideological rigor, is questioned, as they voted in the U.S. Presidential Elections accordingly and subscribed to a politics that strangles their own life chances.

Bill Clinton was the second President to be impeached in the history of America. A Gallup survey revealed that his job approval ratings were higher after the impeachment than they were before.

Ronald Reagan was the fortieth president of United States and became the most revered public figure in recent years. According to the Gallup polls his ratings improved substantially after he left office in November 1984.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the country more orderly, its politics more predictable, and has curbed the scenarios of lawlessness, unrest or economic collapse. Though a majority of Russians have expressed dissatisfaction with the governmentEs work, PutinEs victory in the March 2004 presidential elections is a foregone conclusion.

The analysis of the data collected by the Gallup poll that illustrates the Democratic candidates' relative strengths and weaknesses among different Democratic constituencies, mainly by region, race, age, education, and political ideology is presented. The analysis shows a list of the candidates, whom the Democrats are most likely to support in 2004 Presidential Nomination.

Using monthly presidential approval data for the period between 1985 and 1997 for two presidencies, I analyze the impact of political violence on presidential approval in Peru. While controlling for variables commonly used in the economic voting literature, the results suggest that higher levels of political violence hurt left-leaning governments, but not necessarily right-leaning governments. It is likely that voters expect right-leaning governments to deal better with political violence in general and thus are more supportive of their efforts.

Public support for Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin has fluctuated significantly over Russia's first post-Soviet decade. Cultural explanations for these dynamics emphasize the country's authoritarian culture and Russian preferences for strong and decisive leaders. Neo-institutional theories attribute the dynamics to citizens' everyday evaluations of presidential performance as the government succeeds or fails in meeting citizens' needs and demands. This article tests competing cultural and neo-institutional theories of presidential popularity in Russia during the Yeltsin and early Putin years (1991-2000). We develop and estimate a series of political support models of Russian presidential approval. Although we find substantial support for elements of both cultural and neo-institutional theories of presidential popularity, institutional theories perform substantially better in accounting for fluctuations in Yeltsin's and Putin's popularity.

We analyze the relationship between public approval and presidential success in Congress using time-varying parameter regression methods. Cues from constituency, ideology, and party dominate congressional vote choice, so the effect of public approval of the president is typically marginal. Because the strength of these primary cues varies through time, the effect of public approval on presidential success should also be time varying. Analysis of conflictual roll-call votes from 1953 through 2000 using the time-varying Kalman filter reveals that the effect of public approval on presidential success is marginal and changing through time. These models assume that the time variation is a stochastic process, and finding time-varying relationships may indicate model misspecification. Our theory, however, suggests that this time variation depends on a systematic factor--partisanship. A better specified model that allows systematic parameter variation confirms that the level of partisanship conditions the relationship between public approval and presidential success in Congress.

Over the past three decades, political scientists have been developing general models of presidential approval ratings, seeking to determine the structure of aggregate approval. This endeavor has culminated in the broad claim that 'peace, prosperity, and probity' drive the public's approval. The unprecedented events of the Clinton Presidency, especially his high approval during and after impeachment, present a strong challenge to this model. However, the existing model explains Clinton's approval remarkably well, suggesting that the public punished and rewarded him for the state of the economy, major political events, and his integrity. Passing this strong test constitutes considerable support for the existing model of approval.

Divided government provides ambiguous and conflicting information about which branch of government to hold accountable for government performance. The implication for presidents, who are easy targets of blame, is that they are less likely to be held accountable for government's failures during periods of divided government because the public has a plausible alternative for affixing responsibility: the U.S. Congress. Because presidents are punished more heavily for negative outcomes than they are rewarded for favorable ones, we argue that a divided government context has the effect of increasing presidential approval relative to periods of unified government. At the individual level, using data from the 1972-1994 National Election Studies we show that divided government increases the probability that respondents approve of a president's job performance. This effect is even stronger among citizens who are knowledgeable about control of government. Examining approval at the aggregate level from 1949 to 1996, we find further evidence that divided government boosts presidential approval ratings.

This article examines the variations in support for democratic reformers in post-Soviet politics based on economic conditions and the state of economic transition of the country, by using economic voting literature of surveys taken in the Russian Federation between 1991 and 1999, testing both reward-punishment and price of reform hypotheses. The authors find that the best indicators for a positive assessment of then-president Boris Yeltsin was early rather than late timing of the transition process and positive views of people's own family economic outlook; understanding the dynamics of democratic support found equal measure in political evaluations, and support for opposition parties, specifically the Communist Party, were found when economic outlook was poor and people suffered low-income and severe hardships.

This article examines the rally effect that occurs in American politics during periods of international crises, when the public willingly put aside political differences and support the president. The author measures changes in presidential popularity after militarized disputes between 1933 and 1992, finding that rallies are more likely when supported by White House statements and bipartisan support for the policies of the administration; the size of the rally is also effected by the presentation of the crisis in public terms of bipartisan support, White House spin and media coverage.

Issues concerning the public opinion ratings of the Russian president Vladimir Putin's political success and the public's confidence in his governing style are discussed, It is emphasized that over seventy per cent of respondent expressed confidence in Putin's presidential performance.

In a recent article, Kimball and Patterson (1997, 722) found that citizens appear to make a comparison between what they expect of their representatives in Congress and what they perceive congressional behavior to actually be like--what they call the 'expectations-perceptions differential' and what presidential scholars call the 'expectations gap.' In this article, we replicate and expand Kimball and Patterson's study and relate it to the presidency. Through an analysis of survey data collected at the beginning and the end of the 1996 presidential election campaign, and by using four separate measures of the expectations gap, we demonstrate that public expectations exert a significant impact on evaluations of an incumbent president. They also have a direct impact on vote preference.

The news media in the West has focused on President Saddam Hussein of Iraq since the beginning of the Gulf Crisis. His regime has received more attention than any other in the world. The Iraqi population recognize that Hussein is unable to keep his people from dying to starvation but many of the people consider him a hero.