Comment

Helmut Norpoth's 'Presidents and the Prospective Voter' presents the idea that the president's approval rating is based on retrospection. This challenges the idea presented in the article, 'Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the US Economy,' which claims that presidents are rated according to economic expectation. Norpoth claims that the public does not exhibit such behavior which manifests prospective economic reasoning. However, standard multivariate analysis shows otherwise.