Premium
The Polls: Presidential Referendum Effects in the 2006 Midterm Elections
Author(s) -
COHEN JEFFREY E.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
presidential studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.337
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1741-5705
pISSN - 0360-4918
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-5705.2007.02611.x
Subject(s) - referendum , voting , political science , presidency , presidential system , first past the post voting , straight ticket voting , political economy , democracy , group voting ticket , electoral college , split ticket voting , presidential election , state (computer science) , public administration , law , politics , economics , algorithm , computer science
Many commentators saw the 2006 midterm elections as a referendum on George W. Bush's presidency, especially his unpopular Iraq War policy. Presidential referendum effects may be highly likely given the degree of party polarization and the concomitant attachment of large numbers of voters to the Democratic and Republican parties. But local factors, especially incumbency effects, may also have affected the outcome of the 2006 midterm contests. Using state‐level presidential approval polls, analysis finds that Bush's approval, an indicator of referendum voting, had little impact on voting in Senate contests, once applying controls for the ideological and partisan composition of state voting populations. In contrast, even with these controls, Bush's approval influenced voting in gubernatorial contests. But Iraq War battle deaths affected voting for senators, suggestive of another type of referendum effect. Battle deaths, however, did not affect the gubernatorial races.