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The President's Effect on Partisan Attitudes
Author(s) -
Jacobson Gary C.
Publication year - 2012
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.1741-5705.2012.04013.x
Subject(s) - political science , variety (cybernetics) , affect (linguistics) , identification (biology) , object (grammar) , social psychology , public relations , psychology , computer science , communication , botany , artificial intelligence , biology
The link between the president's job approval ratings and aggregate election outcomes is well established, but the processes forging the connection have received comparatively little attention. A variety of data from diverse sources across multiple administrations indicates that popular assessments of the president strongly affect how his party is evaluated, perceived, and adopted as an object of identification, which, in turn, helps to account for the president's influence on the electoral fates of his party's candidates. The data also suggest that opinions of B arack O bama have so far had an even larger effect on attitudes toward the president's party than did opinions of his predecessors, including G . W . B ush.