Presidential Leadership and Congressional Seat Change:

Evidence from US House Elections (1912-2006)

Hanna Rutkowski Honors Thesis

Department of Political Science Northwestern University

Advisor: Prof. Laurel Harbridge May 15, 2011

Abstract

In the existing body of literature on congressional elections, there is a well-documented trend wherein the president’s party loses seats during midterm elections. It is also clear from the data that there is great variation across presidents in the number of congressional seats lost during the midterms. Some of the existing literature attempts to explain this variation through the theories of Economic Punishment, Systematic Punishment and Presidential Coattails. This thesis integrates those theories with a typology of Presidential Leadership developed by Stephen Skowronek. Through statistical analysis, primarily using a panel data analysis of district level data on congressional elections, this thesis shows that there is in fact variation across presidential leadership type in the size of the midterm decline, and demonstrates how Skowronek’s typology of Presidential Leadership interacts with the already established mechanisms of midterm decline.

Contents List of Figures and Tables p. 1 Introduction (or Preface, if any) p. 2 Acknowledgments (if any) p. 5 Chapter 1. Literature Review p. 6 Chapter 2. Theory and Hypotheses p. 14 Chapter 3. Data and Methodology p. 22 Chapter 4. Results: Aggregate Seat Change p. 35 Chapter 5. Results: Panel Data Models p. 39 Chapter 6. Conclusions p. 61 Bibliography p. 65

 

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List of Figures and Tables

Figures:

Figure 1 Graphical Representation of Economic Punishment in On-Year Elections p. 42 Figure 2 Graphical Representation of Economic Punishment in Midterm Elections p. 45 Figure 3 Graphical Representation of Presidential Coattails in On-Year Elections p. 51 Figure 4 Graphical Representations of Presidential Coattails in Midterm Elections p. 53 Tables:

Table 1: Average Seat Change for Different Groups of Presidents p. 25 Table 2: Key Statistics By President p. 36 Table 3: Economic Punishment in On-Year Elections p. 41 Table 4: Economic Punishment in Midterm Elections p. 44 Table 5: Systematic Punishment in On-Year Elections p. 46 Table 6: Systematic Punishment in Midterm Elections p. 47 Table 7: Presidential Coattails in On-Year Elections p. 50 Table 8: Withdrawn Coattails in Midterm Elections p. 52 Table 9: Economic and Systematic Punishment in On-Year Elections p. 55 Table 10: Economic and Systematic Punishment in Midterm Elections p. 56 Table 11: All Three Theories in Midterm Elections p. 59

 

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Introduction

The American political system recently experienced a midterm election of historical

proportions. President Obama himself has gone so far as to call the electoral response to his party

a “shellacking (CNN, 2010).” And while the Democratic Party’s seat loss in the 2010

congressional elections was extraordinary in magnitude, the loss of seats itself is not a new

phenomenon. The president’s party historically suffers from a weakening in support during

midterm elections. That decline however, is not uniform in magnitude. For example, in the 1958

midterm elections, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Republican party lost a total of 48 seats in

the House of Representatives, while 4 years later, in 1962, John F. Kennedy’s Democrats lost

only 4 House Seats. In very rare instances (1934, 1998, and 2002 from my sample beginning in

1912), the president’s party actually gains seats at the midterm.

There is clearly variation in the number of seats lost by each president. If that variation is

systematic, it is valuable to understand which factors make the greatest impact. An

understanding of when and how the president’s party loses or gains seats in congressional

elections can be incredibly important for legislative strategy. The majority party may prioritize

certain legislative initiatives in the months leading up to an election if it fears a marked decline

in seat control. The minority party may similarly attempt to stall certain of the majority’s

initiatives if it feels it will soon take power itself. Both majority and minority may take increased

measures to counteract factors like a poor economic climate if they have been shown to be

significant determinants of their electoral success. The extent to which congressional agents will

undertake any or all of the above can be informed by an understanding of the very mechanisms

that frequently lead to seat loss of the president’s party.

 

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It seems nearly impossible to predict the exact magnitude of a swing in congressional

control, as an incredible amount of local and national nuance goes into the outcome of any

particular race. Valuable insight can be gleaned however from a thorough understanding of the

various factors shown to predispose the president’s party to lose or gain seats. Economic growth

is frequently mentioned as an important factor, as many have theorized that the president’s party

will be punished for a poor economic climate (Abramowitz 1985, Levitt 1994). The theory of

surge and decline, where a popular president is able to bring other members of his party into

office on his coattails, and then loses some of those seats in the following midterm, is another

(Born 1990, Campbell 1991, Levitt 1994). A final theory concerns the systematic punishment of

the president’s party (Levitt 1994). This thesis will argue that presidential leadership is an

important piece of this puzzle, both on its own and in conjunction with other factors.

The analyses that follow will approach the concept of presidential leadership through the

lens of political time, as defined by Stephen Skowronek. They will attempt to demonstrate that

presidents in certain leadership moments may be able to soften the declines suffered by their

parties in off-year elections (midterms). Leaders who can convince the country that they are on

the right track may be able to muster continued support for their party, even when they are not at

the top of the ticket. On the other hand, presidents perceived to struggle might face harsh public

referenda, and pass that frustration onto their parties through the midterm cycle. For Skowronek,

the success or failure of presidential leadership depends on more than personal charisma; it also

depends on the specific conditions they inherit in political time.

Why does this matter? The past two years illustrate the fact that the modern president

may have difficulty enacting his legislative priorities, even with dominant majorities in both

houses of Congress. A reversal in control of the legislature may be enough to derail his agenda

 

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entirely. Any president who can minimize his party’s midterm loss will have a tremendous

advantage in this realm of politics. As such, the impact of leadership on the outcome of

congressional elections could have great bearing for the strategic leader of the future. It could

illuminate ways in which the public evaluates the president and inform both the president’s

communication with the voters as well as his relationship and responsibility to his party. At the

same time, it is important to understand the limits of leadership’s ability to influence electoral

outcomes. If Skowronek is correct that presidents are constrained in their influence by the

political time in which they take office, there may be important implications for how they

prepare for and anticipate congressional elections.

This thesis will begin with a review of the existing literature, first addressing those

theories that seek to explain the general pattern of seat loss for the president’s party in midterm

elections. The literature review will briefly introduce the work done by Skowronek in the field of

presidential leadership. Chapter 2 is a theoretical section that elaborates on Skowronek’s theory

in the context of the hypotheses I have developed and will test in this thesis. I then provide an

overview of the data I will analyze and introduce the statistical models I have developed to test

my hypotheses. Chapters 4 through 6 present the results of my analyses, along with implications

and conclusions.

 

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my adviser Laurel Harbridge for her tireless efforts to help me

throughout the course of this project. I could not have done it without our weekly meetings and

her thoughtful comments on everything I produced. I would also like to thank my friend Lauren

Gramza for the moral support she provided throughout the year- it is always nice to have

someone else in the same boat with whom to commiserate. I want to also thank the MMSS

program for giving me the tools to complete this project. I should note that it was Professor

Daniel Galvin’s class on The American Presidency that first inspired this thesis three years ago.

Finally, I want to thank my parents for the support they’ve provided throughout this process, and

especially my mother for staying up late to read over a final draft.

 

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Chapter 1

Literature Review

Though a pattern of presidential coattails and midterm loss in congressional elections has

been substantiated empirically, the magnitude of these effects varies across presidents, and it is

less clear what explains the variation. Although this thesis explores the variation across

presidents, I begin with an overview of existing literature on midterm loss. Three prominent

theories concerning midterm loss for the president’s party in congressional elections are: the

theory of surge and decline through presidential coattails, the theory that the president’s party is

punished for national economic performance, and the theory that the president’s party is

systematically punished, regardless of observable factors. All of these theories have room to

interact with the literature on presidential leadership, and in fact, there is a body of literature

concerning how association with the president and his policies impacts the electoral fortunes of

in-party representatives. My thesis will operate within the intersection of these areas of literature,

with a particular emphasis on presidential leadership style as defined by Stephen Skowronek.

One of the foremost theorists in the area of presidential surge and midterm decline in

congressional elections, James Campbell, explores the difference in seat change in on-year

elections, when there is a simultaneous presidential vote, compared with off-year, or midterm,

congressional elections (Campbell 1991). He hypothesizes that a winning president has a

positive effect on his party’s share of the vote in on-year elections, but that the president’s party

will suffer in the following midterm election cycle. He offers one possible explanation for this

decline in the presence of presidential coattails in on-years and their absence in midterms,

suggesting that popular presidential candidates boost turnout and voting for their party, but when

 

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they are absent from the ticket in the following election, these voters return to the opposing party

or abstain from voting altogether (Campbell 1991).

Coattails work in the following way. When the president runs at the top of the ticket in

on-year elections, his personal popularity attracts support that can “spill over” to his party’s

congressional candidates (Campbell 1991, 477). This increase in vote for congressional

representatives, which Campbell argues should be proportional to the president’s margin of

victory, is what is sometimes referred to as the presidential surge. According to Richard Born,

some of the surge is due to the fact that even those people with lower political involvement vote

in presidential elections, casting straight tickets for the party of their preferred presidential

candidate (Born 1990). These voters then abstain in the midterm elections, and those

congressional representatives helped into office by the surge see a decrease in their vote share.

Born also notes that positive popularity is a weaker motivating factor than negative

reactions to a president’s policies. While the personal appeal of a presidential candidate may

draw his enthusiastic supporters in an on-year election, at the following midterms, it is easier to

mobilize a galvanized opposition then a satisfied support base (Born 1990). Both cases: where

uninvolved voters are drawn into a presidential election and vote straight ticket for his party, and

where the president finds it harder to mobilize his supporters in the midterms than the opposition

finds it to fight unpopular policies, can lead to a midterm decline.

In a second explanation, Campbell (1990) explores the idea that midterm elections serve

as a public evaluation of the administration’s performance, a theory further explored by Levitt

(1994). While Campbell broadly explores this effect by measuring whether the decline in off-

years exceeds the surge in on-years, indicating that more seats are lost than those gained due to

the surge, Levitt takes a more nuanced approach. He distinguishes between punishment of the

 

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president’s party based purely on economic conditions, and a broader measure of systematic

punishment that occurs independent of coattails, the economy and presidential approval.

The economic punishment theory states that the president’s party benefits from strong

economic performance in presidential election years, but at the midterms, voters use the

economy as a proxy for evaluating the administration’s performance, and punish the president’s

party for below average growth (Levitt 1994). As they cannot vote the president out of office

himself at the midterms, voters take their frustrations about the economy out on members of his

party in congress, where those in the House of Representatives are up for reelection every two

years. Alan Abramowitz further explores this theory in a 1985 paper. He directly tests whether

economic conditions had an impact on the public’s evaluation of the president, and then how that

evaluation impacts the president’s party in midterm elections (Abramowitz 1985). He finds that

economic conditions have effects on presidential evaluation that vary by year, but that in general,

expectations about the future were most salient in the public’s evaluations (Abramowitz 1985).

Systematic punishment refers to the practice wherein voters punish the president’s party

regardless of how the administration has performed on quantifiable criteria like economic

performance (Levitt 1994). The president may even have high approval ratings, but be punished

simply because voters seek a mediating position between the extremes at the midterms, and vote

for candidates that are more moderate (Levitt 1994). Because the president puts a visible face on

his party’s platform and attempts to publically advance his agenda, voters may see the opposing

party as less extreme, or a weaker legislative majority for the president’s party as an important

check on his agenda.

Levitt departs from the traditional time series approach employed by Campbell in his use

of district level panel data, greatly expanding his sample size. His analysis uses deviations in

 

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economic growth (measured from the average annual growth in GNP) as a predictor of party

control in individual districts over time (Levitt 1994). His model finds support for all three

theories of midterm decline (coattails, economic punishment, and systematic punishment). It

predicts that economic punishment accounts for a one percent loss of seats for the president’s

party, compared to two percent for withdrawn coattails and two percent for systematic

punishment (1994). The story on systematic punishment is particularly interesting in that Levitt

(1994) finds statistical support for systematic punishment of the incumbent president’s party in

on-year as well as midterm elections. These findings are consistent with the results of

Campbell’s model, though of a much smaller magnitude. Levitt (1994) addresses this

discrepancy in effect size in the introduction to his paper, and argues that existing models predict

effects so large that they far outstrip the actual midterm decline. This provides another reason

why it may be interesting to segment the data by president, as it may provide a more nuanced

picture of the important factors.

Aside from an indirect measure through presidential approval ratings, most empirical

models of midterm decline do not account for aggregate differences in presidential leadership.

There are a number of papers that take a case-study approach to a single president, and his

relationship to midterm elections during his tenure. One such study is by Brady, Cogan, Gaines,

and Rivers (1996). These authors focus on the 1994 congressional elections, when the

Republican Party took control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.

They found that while Democrats saw a huge loss of seats, these losses were regionally and

ideologically concentrated. They also found that in districts where the vote for Clinton in the

1992 presidential election was lowest, Republicans successfully ran on anti-Clinton campaigns,

painting the democratic candidates in the unpopular president’s image. They hypothesize that

 

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because Clinton ran on a moderate platform and then moved to the left once elected, he left more

moderate and conservative Democratic representatives exposed to defeat (Brady 1996)

Another case study of the effect of presidential leadership is a study of the Eisenhower

congressional cohorts, conducted by Kevin Price (2002). Price sets out to examine the effects of

a particular leadership type defined by Stephen Skowronek, which I will explore later:

preemptive leadership. He focuses on three partisan effects of this leadership style: ideological

characteristics of members of congress, voting behavior, and electoral dynamics, the last of

which is most interesting for my analysis (Price 2002). Price looks at the changing overall

partisan affiliation of congress during each two-year period in Eisenhower’s tenure, as well as

what kind of incumbent candidates were more likely to win, those closer or farther from Ike’s

moderate rhetoric.

What Price finds is that Eisenhower was eventually successful in bringing some like-

minded moderate Republicans into office, but that those gains were temporary, and did not

largely change the makeup of congress. While moderates were advantaged during his tenure, the

move to the center left more conservative Republicans vulnerable to the galvanized efforts of the

Democratic opposition, and Ike’s party lost those seats. Price also notes an important fact of

preemptive leadership. By co-opting some of the opposition’s agenda in their third-way approach

to politics, Preemptive leaders actually legitimize that agenda, here FDR’s New Deal social

programs, and lengthen the opposition’s tenure as the dominant party in politics (Price 2002).

While empirical studies like those offered by Brady (1996) and Price (2002) provide an

important window into the effect of individual presidential leadership on their party’s midterm

success, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to systematically examining this aggregate

relationship across presidents. In order to bridge this gap, this thesis combines insights from the

 

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theories of midterm loss with theoretical perspectives on presidential leadership. In his book The

Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush, Stephen Skowronek

develops an influential typology for presidential leaders. He divides presidents into four groups

depending on the vulnerability of the dominant political party, and the president’s affiliation with

that party (Skowronek 1993).

Based on this typology, it is possible to classify the modern presidents into the four

categories put forth by Skowronek. The classification contains two main categories of political

regimes. For Skowronek, a political regime is distinctly partisan, and yet goes far beyond the

agenda advanced at a national convention. In this sense, regimes provide an ideological

undercurrent that defines “the government’s basic commitments of ideology and interest”

(Skowronek 1993, p. 9). For example, when Franklin Roosevelt took power in the midst of the

Great Depression, his New Deal philosophy fundamentally altered the relationship between the

government and the public. Those ideological commitments would persist in the political

discourse for nearly 50 years, throughout the course of the major Democratic regime of the 20th

century. Despite periods when Republicans controlled the presidency, the idea that the federal

government had a responsibility to provide for the people’s basic security was never far from the

forefront of politics.

The first split in Skowronek’s typology occurs based on whether regimes are resilient or

vulnerable. When a regime first begins to dominate the political discourse, the ideology is strong

and the regime is considered resilient. Presidents at the helm during periods of resilience

generally have far more license for change. As Skowronek says: “A president’s authority hinges

on the warrants that can be drawn from the moment at hand to justify action and secure the

legitimacy of the changes effected” (Skowronek 1993, p 18). Simply put, a president in a

 

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resilient regime has stronger warrants to draw on. As time continues to pass, the regime begins to

fracture. The unified message about government commitments that brought the regime to power

begins to deteriorate. The process of actually legislating causes difference to come out within the

party structure as different coalition members have different priorities. The public may become

disenchanted with certain aspects of the regime’s message. These factors contribute to a general

weakening of the once resilient regime, until it becomes vulnerable and eventually makes way

for the rise of a new dominant ideology (Skowronek 1993).

Within the group of vulnerable regimes, there are two types of presidents: the

Reconstructive leaders who are opposed to the prevailing ideology, and the Disjunctive leaders

who are affiliated and are in turn vulnerable themselves. Within the resilient group, there are

Preemptive leaders who are opposed to the ideology, and Articulative leaders who are affiliated

and must find ways to innovate within the limits of the regime’s message. Together, these

different types of presidents form waves in political time. Each wave, which persists from the

very beginning of a regime to its end, contains at least one of each type of president, and often

more than one Articulative or Preemptive leader (Skowronek 1993). For example, the

Democratic wave that began with the election of FDR in 1932 encompassed one Reconstructive

president (FDR), three Articulative leaders (Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson), two Preemptive

leaders (Eisenhower and Nixon), and one Disjunctive president (Carter).

This thesis will employ Skowronek’s classification of presidents in the kind of empirical

analysis used by Campbell and Levitt. It will test the aggregate effect of presidential leadership

on congressional elections, particularly in midterm elections, where the president’s party

traditionally suffers. Analyzing the various types of presidents will allow me to explore not only

 

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average midterm losses for each type, but also to consider the mechanisms of midterm decline in

the context of presidential leadership.

 

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Chapter 2

Theory and Hypotheses

Skowronek employs his typology to discuss recurring trends in political time, presenting

a limited number of illustrative examples. As he notes early on, the idiosyncratic nature of a

relatively small sample of individual actors make generalization difficult (Skowronek 1993, p.

4). It is challenging to parse out general trends in a sample of very individualized actors.

Essentially, the small sample size makes it difficult to determine whether the apparent patterns in

the data are evidence of a wider trend or simply a statistical anomaly peculiar to the available

cases. This is one limitation of this thesis, but if significant results emerge, they may still be

compelling. This theory section will begin with a general description of the way I chose to

approach the existing literature, and will then include an in-depth analysis of each type of

president as well as my hypotheses for empirical study.

My first step in developing a workable theory was to consider the characteristics of each

type of president in Skowronek’s typology in the context of existing theories of midterm decline.

This required an intimate understanding of each leadership type. The specific constraints and

warrants for authority faced by each type of president have important implications for how they

will be judged in the public, and for how that judgment may manifest in their party’s electoral

fortunes. By definition, regime change as considered by Skowronek involves a switch in the

dominant partisan discourse, a change in the way the public perceives “the government’s basic

commitments of ideology and interest” (Skowronek 1993, p. 9). The nature of where presidents

fall in their respective regime’s trajectory has some initial implications for congressional seat

change. For instance, one would expect presidents at the lead end of a new regime to bring with

them an increase in congressional power. This same logic implies that those presidents who

 

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come to power at the tail end of a political regime will see a dampening in their party’s

congressional influence. In the zero-sum game of what is an essentially two-party system, for a

new dominant regime to arise, the previous regime must fall out of power.

While suggestive, this first brush with the theory does not go deep enough. While we can

expect those presidents who come first in a new regime - Reconstructive leaders - to experience

congressional gains, and those presidents who come at the tail end of a faltering regime-

Disjunctive leaders - to experience losses, we can say little about the magnitude of those gains

and losses relative to the leaders who come between. Perhaps Disjunctive leaders come to power

at the end of a long decline in their party’s influence, and merely lose the final seats necessary

for a change in dominance. Reconstructive leaders may simply get the ball rolling before turning

the regime over to their successors, who then make larger gains. This shallow look also obscures

the way in which these temporal patterns interact with established mechanisms for decline. It is

here that a deeper look into Skowronek’s theory becomes important.

i. Reconstructive leaders

In The Politics Presidents Make, Skowronek says that Reconstructive presidents “shared

the most promising of all situations for the exercise of political leadership” (Skowronek 1993, p.

37). A prime example of a Reconstructive leader is Franklin Roosevelt, whose New Deal

ideology served as a radical change in course from the Republican discourse of the previous

decades and persisted as an underlying principle for American politics through the regime’s

demise under Jimmy Carter. Because these presidents come to power in moments of great

change, they do not always need to articulate a specific path for the future; at times, it is enough

that they merely do something different. They come to power at a time when “pre-established

commitments of ideology and interest have, in the course of events, become vulnerable to direct

 

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repudiation as failed or irrelevant responses to the problems of the day” (Skowronek 1993, p 39).

Past failures give these presidents enormous warrant to disrupt the status quo, and perhaps, will

allow them some leeway in terms of accountability. This brings us to my first hypothesis:

1. Reconstructive leaders will be insulated from systematic and economic punishment,

relative to other leadership types. They will have large coattails, but see smaller declines

in the following midterms.

It is my hypothesis that the repudiative position of Reconstructive leaders will insulate

them from the same kind of economic and systematic punishment suffered by other presidents.

Because their predecessors have failed so miserably, I believe the public will allow these

presidents some flexibility in the actual success of their initiatives. With past failures fresh in

their mind, it may not take an unequivocal success to appease the voters’ wishes. The mere

departure from past disappointment may be enough to be considered progress. As Skowronek

says: “Roosevelt succeeded despite stunning (legislative) defeats because he remained

throughout the sponsor of an alternative to a bankrupt past” (Skowronek 1993, p 28).

Regarding coattail effects, these presidents will be seen as the bearer of a new and fruitful

message, the leader responsible for returning to the values lost under the previous regime

(Skowronek 1993, p. 37). As the recognizable face of change, these presidents should be able to

bring sweeping changes to the makeup of congress, carrying in new representatives under the

auspices of change. In addition, I do not expect that they will see the kinds of declines usually

associated with big coattails. More than any other type, these presidents should be able to argue

that they need solid congressional support in order to make the changes necessary for the future

of the country. Having just suffered the trauma associated with regime failure, the voters will

feel an urgent need for change that later presidents will struggle to regain.

 

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ii. Articulative leaders

For those presidents affiliated with a resilient regime - the articulators, or orthodox

innovators - conditions are less favorable. These presidents are tasked with carrying forth the

message set forth by their reconstructive predecessors. They must find a way to make the

message their own while preserving the legitimacy of the regime. Any change they make is a

movement away from the founding message from which they draw their authority. They must

find a way to move forward while controlling the fissures that naturally occur in their base

(Skowronek 1993). An illustrative example of an Articulative president is Lyndon Johnson, who

modified FDR’s New Deal ideals in his Great Society Programs, while also adding innovations

of his own. As Skowronek says, these presidents are “ministers to the faithful” and have an

obligation to adhere to principles and act in a certain manner (Skowronek 1993, p. 41). They

must do all this while preventing the stagnation of their agenda, a daunting task for any leader.

This brings us to my second hypothesis:

2. Articulative leaders will have big coattail effects and see large corresponding midterm

losses. They will also experience systematic and economic punishment, but to a lesser

degree than the disjunctive leaders who follow.

Articulative presidents do just that: articulate the message of the regime. As such, I

hypothesize that their presence on the ticket in on-year elections will help carry their party to

electoral gains. A compelling message brought forth by a strong leader may help tie factions of

the party together in time for elections, as the president’s presence reminds voters of the reason

they put the regime in power in the first place. He serves as a national face for the party, both in

the media and on the ballot. The pomp and circumstance of national conventions during

presidential election years is all about party unity. However, during the midterm election that

 

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follows, each candidate seeks an individual identity that will resonate with their voters, seeking

distance from the national party establishment if they believe that will be rewarded in the polls.

The consistent message of the previous election will be lost, allowing the fractures in the party to

come forth and potentially reversing the electoral gains of the previous vote.

I expect that these Articulative presidents will also experience more economic and

systematic punishment than Reconstructive leaders, but less than the Disjunctive leaders who

will close out the regime. They will not be insulated in the same way as their predecessors; the

regime will have reached a point in its progression where the public will expect concrete results.

It will no longer be enough to simply take the country in some nebulously defined new direction,

and voters will look to the performance of the economy as an indicator of administration success.

If growth is down, these president’s policies will appear to be at fault. Voters may also begin to

tire with more of the same message, resulting in a moderate level of systematic punishment for

these types of leaders.

iii. Disjunctive leaders

Disjunctive leaders are those unfortunate presidents who fall at the tail end of a regime in

decline. Affiliated with a vulnerable message, they struggle to find any legitimate authority. To

stick to a failed message is to present oneself as a threat to the future of the nation, but to

repudiate that message is to alienate any remaining partisan support. As Skowronek says, these

presidents face the “very definition of the impossible leadership situation: a president affiliated

with a set of established commitments that have in the course of events been called into question

as failed or irrelevant responses to the problems of the day” (Skowronek 1993, p. 39).

These Jimmy Carters and Herbert Hoovers serve as memorable failures in our political

history, but for Skowronek, they have little choice in their incompetence. Without much

 

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legitimate authority, we can hardly expect that these presidents should bring about electoral

gains; rather, they might expect to be systematically punished, regardless of what they actually

do. My third hypothesis follows from these facts:

3. Disjunctive leaders will have limited to non-existent coattails, and thus should see little

midterm decline attributable to withdrawn coattails. They will however, be systematically

punished in all election years, and should experience economic punishment as well.

Unpopular themselves, these unfortunate leaders should not be able to sweep in an on-

year election surge. An interesting consequence is that they may see slightly lower midterm

losses than the Reconstructive and Articulative leaders that came prior in the regime. The surge

and decline theory states that while on-year elections bring a big surge to the President’s party,

the midterm election decline has a corrective effect, bringing party divisions back in line with the

natural order. Since Disjunctive presidents do not get the surge, they should not see that

corresponding decline.

They can however, expect severe systematic and economic punishment. For Skowronek, it

does not matter what these presidents do, they will always be seen as “an easy caricature of all

that has gone wrong” (Skowronek 1993, p. 39-40). This idea corresponds greatly with the theory

of systematic punishment, where the president’s party will suffer congressional losses regardless

of coattails, approval or economic conditions. This notion fits with the image of a helpless

leader, doomed to oversee the final fracturing of a once dominant coalition.

iv. Preemptive leaders

One might easily identify Preemptive leaders in the following way: find any president

caught up in a constitutional crisis or impeachment proceedings- that president is probably a

Preempitve leader (Skowronek 1993, p 44). These opposition leaders in the midst of a resilient

 

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regime often overstep their legitimate mandate for authority and find the country calling for their

removal. They are personal leaders who build their base of support across traditional ideological

divisions. They harness dissatisfied components of the dominant regime as well as a portion of

their party’s traditional base (Skowronek 1993). It is this kind of party building that gave rise to

Bill Clinton’s Third Way.

In the process of actually governing, these fragile coalitions become difficult to hold

together. Preemptive leaders can do little without angering some component of their support

base. Their centrist policies are too conservative for the left and too liberal for the right.

Eventually, the coalition fractures beyond repair, leading the public to question the very

foundations of their legitimacy and sweeping the latent regime back into power (Skowronek

1993, p. 44). My final hypothesis is as follows:

1. Preemptive leaders will experience strong coattails and withdraw coattail effects due to

the personal nature of their presidency. They will also be judged on the performance of

their administration, with a strong focus on economic punishment.

Preemptive leaders live and die by their ability to personally build a working support

base. They do not always advocate the traditional platforms of their parties, and thus cannot rely

on ideological identity alone to garner votes. This personal nature of their presidency makes

them particularly susceptible to the effects of coattails and withdrawn coattails. During on-year

elections, they may shepherd like-minded candidates into congressional office, only to see those

representatives fail to get reelected during the following midterms. They are not only the face of

the party during election years; they are the face of their unique preemptive identity. Thus,

during the midterm election cycle, like-minded representatives suffer from the absence of the

leader of both their party and ideology. While congressmen affiliated with other types of

 

21  

presidents have the party structure to fall back on during midterms, these representatives are

without that luxury.

In addition, because they do not always have a traditional issue platform, these presidents

will be judged on the tangible performance of their administration, namely the economy. Where

other presidents might be judged on their ability to advocate for the issues their party cares

about, these presidents appeal to voters with disparate ideological leanings, and thus must

demonstrate progress in a different way. I hypothesize that if the economy does well, they will be

able to maintain support for their policies, but if growth is slow, these leaders will be punished.

 

22  

Chapter 3

Data and Methodology

As previously discussed, if presidents are in fact constrained in their ability to influence

congressional elections by their position in political time, this will have important implications

for their electoral relationships with Congress. The previous literature on midterm decline is

lacking in that it treats all presidents the same, regardless of their position in regime history.

Critical to addressing this deficiency is a model that can incorporate both the existing theories on

midterm elections and Skowronek’s typology. Any such model requires election data and

controls similar to those employed by previous empirical studies, as well as a system for

transferring Skowronek’s broad classification system into a concrete coding scheme. I elect to

explore the data on multiple levels, first taking a more macro level approach that measures

aggregate seat change, and then a district level panel data approach that greatly increases the

sample size, allowing for a far more robust analysis.

I begin by classifying the presidents of the past century in accordance with Skowronek’s

typology. For the most part, Skowronek has done so already in his 1993 book or a follow-up

published in 2008: Presidential Leadership in Political Time. The only presidents not explicitly

classified were Harding and Taft. In these cases, I used the cross-tabulation of regime resiliency

and identity affiliation to classify each leader. Both Harding and Taft were Republican presidents

affiliated with a resilient regime, and thus are Articulative presidents. One limitation in this part

of my study concerned the classification of the last two presidents: George W. Bush and Barack

Obama. Skowronek’s classification relies on determining each president’s place in the broad

trajectory of the regime’s rise and decline. This depends on historical patterns that are difficult to

determine without any future data. It is impossible to tell whether the end of Republican

 

23  

dominance came with the failed presidency of George W. Bush, or whether Obama’s Democratic

insurgence is just a momentary lapse during the reign of a Preemptive president and will end in

the same way as Clinton’s with the return of a Republican president. However, given the huge

seat turnover between these two presidents, I have chosen to classify George W. Bush as a

Disjunctive leader and Barack Obama as a Reconstructive president. The seat loss experienced

by Bush and his complete annihilation in terms of public opinion- his approval rating bottomed

out at 25 percent in November of 2008 (Peters, Presidential Job Approval, 1999-2011) -seem

more reminiscent of a Disjunctive leader than an Articulator.

For each empirical observation in my panel, I created variables representing which type

of president was the incumbent, as well as which type was elected (for midterms, these will be

the same). In all cases where the president left office midway through his term (FDR, Kennedy,

Nixon), I classified the replacement president according to Skowronek’s typology. These

situations present additional complications when considering coattail effects, as the presdident

elected to office in one year, is not always the same as at the following midterm. In that case,

their successor experiences the effect of their withdrawn coattails. After classifying all presidents

according to Skowronek’s typology, I turned to the next step, gathering the remaining data.

i. Data

I compiled the data necessary for my analyses from a variety of sources. The data on the

number of seats held by the president’s party during each congress- used in the aggregate seat

change models- is easily obtained from the office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives

(Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives). For the panel models, district level

election data come from House General Elections Data, 1876-2008 (Brady et al. 2008). I chose

to focus on House elections alone rather than both the House and Senate because of the fact that

 

24  

each Senate seat comes up for reelection only once every six years. In any given election, only

one third of the Senate seats are up for election. Because my panel data component for House

elections covers every district every two years, it could not easily be combined with data on

Senate elections. Running a model for the Senate alone is complicated by the same reality that

only one third of the seats would be included in every year. Further segmenting the data to

account for these differences makes the sample sizes for analyses of the Senate too small to

achieve meaningful statistical results. For these reasons, I elected to explore only data on House

elections, beginning in 1912, when the House reached its current total of 435 members, and

ending in 2006, the last year for which I have complete data.1

In order to test the presidential coattails hypothesis, I needed data on the popular vote for

the president in all national elections. For on-year elections, the regression includes a measure of

the two-party popular vote share obtained by the winning president. In order to capture

withdrawn coattails during midterm election year models, I used the popular vote share from the

previous presidential election. I obtained these data from The American Presidency Project at

UC Santa Barbara (Peters, Presidential Elections Data, 1999-2011).

To measure economic growth I draw on historical data on Gross Domestic Product

(GDP). There are some temporal limitations to the data on GDP, as before 1929, economists did

not measure all of the current components used to calculate GDP. Any data on GDP prior to this

year are retroactive estimates. The estimates I use in my models come from the Millenial Edition

of Historical Statistics of the United States (HSUS) (Sutch 2006). HSUS publications provide

descriptions of the various estimates that have been created to represent GDP in these earlier

                                                                                                               1  The analyses of aggregate seat change actually go through the election of Barack Obama in 2008. District level election data was incomplete for the 2008 congressional elections however, so I elected to use only data through 2006 for the panel data component.

 

25  

years. I chose the Millenial Edition estimates because they were the most comprehensive. The

Millenial Edition estimates are in real 1996 US dollars, and after 1929, represent actual values of

GDP. However, this data set includes only data on GDP up through 2002. After that year, data

come from National Income and Product Accounts (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2011), and

are in 2005 dollars. Given the fact that the GDP variable is derived from a percentage growth

rate, the different base years for the data should not be an issue. For robustness, I checked growth

rates for some of the later years to ensure that indices for both base years produced consistent

estimates.

ii. Aggregate Seat Change

Before focusing on specific hypotheses, I begin with a quick look at the aggregate trends.

Using a macro level analysis of aggregate seat turnover, conditional on where the president falls

in Skowronek’s typology, this approach provides a first look at the data and is designed to

provide big picture numbers and inform later analyses. I had initially intended to run regression

models, similar to those used in the panel data section, for aggregate seat change as well, but the

small sample size proved prohibitive. Thus the results of this section will be limited to summary

statistics. I first compare the average seat turnover in the House of Representatives for each type

of president.

Table 1: Average Seat Change for Different Groups of Presidents Midterms On-Years*

Skowronek Presidential

Type Average Seat Change Standard

Deviation Average Seat Change Standard

Deviation Reconstructive -6.684

(Min: -18.4; Max: 2.97) 8.321 2.486

(Min: -.460; Max: 4.38) 1.973

Disjunctive -5.181 (Min: -12.0; Max: 1.73)

5.783 -8.941 (Min: -23.02; Max:0 .69)

10.063

Articulative -7.476 (Min: -17.7; Max: -.643)

6.433 3.024 (Min: -9.80; Max: 17.28)

8.455

 

26  

Preemptive -7.559 (Min: -14.5; Max: 1.15)

5.497 .5133 (Min: -4.11; Max: 4.73)

2.773

*On-year elections exclude the only outlier (defined by box plots) in the sample- the 1920 Presidential election year following Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency. This data is excluded from the statistics on Preemptive leaders.

The data reveal a seemingly surprising trend. Disjunctive leaders (those who come at the

tail end of a faltering regime) lose, on average, the fewest seats of any presidential type during

midterm elections. The observation however, fits with the logic of Hypothesis 3, wherein these

leaders do not have large coattails to begin with, and thus do not experience a dramatic decline

when those coattails are later withdrawn. The surge and decline theory indicates that when a

president’s party gains seats on his coattails in a presidential election year, they should then lose

some of those seats in the following midterms. If the president does not have large coattails

during the on-year elections, then there are no gains to translate into losses during the following

midterm. The large majority of seat loss must come from other factors. Further support for this

theory about Disjunctive leaders comes in the data for on-year elections. Here the parties of

Disjunctive leaders barely ever gain seats, and on average lose 8.94 percent of the two-party

seats in congress. Given the fact that these presidents are actually losing seats in on-years, it is no

longer so surprising that they have a lower drop-off in the midterms.

Additionally of note is the fact that Articulative presidents were the only group never to

make gains in the midterms. All other categories (even Disjunctive presidents) saw at least one

president’s party make modest gains in a midterm election. This may simply be an anomaly due

to the small number of presidents covered by this study, but it is nevertheless interesting to note.

Similarly, while Articulative presidents exclusively suffer from declines at the midterms, these

same presidents had the highest average seat gain during on-year elections. The implications for

 

27  

these trends are unclear from these simple summary statistics, and merit further analysis. It will

be interesting to see how they play out in the panel data analysis of the different theories.

iii. Panel Data Component

The second component of my analysis is a panel data study using district level election

data. Each observation consists of the two-party vote share garnered by the Democratic Party

candidate in a given district in a given election year. For instance, if the Democratic candidate

won 55 percent of the vote while the Republican won 40 percent, then the dependent variable in

these analyses would equal 55/(55+40) * 100, or 58 percent. These vote shares are then regressed

on a number of variables, some of which test specific theories, some of which are included

merely as controls. I elect to first test each theory individually, and then to run models that test

the competing hypotheses for midterm decline together. This provides a clear picture of how

each theoretical mechanism operates on its own, followed by a more comprehensive model

designed to prevent the overestimation of each individual effect. As I will explain below, at least

for on-year elections, I cannot correctly test all three theories: economic punishment, systematic

punishment, and presidential coattails, while still running separate analyses for each type of

president in Skowronek’s typology.

The nature of important variables makes it impossible to accurately test all three theories

together while still segmenting the data by presidential type. Both theories of economic and

systematic punishment attribute midterm decline to voter reflection on the performance of the

president elected at time t-l, while the theory of presidential coattails relies on the newly elected

(at time t) president’s ability to draw votes for his party’s congressional candidates. In some

cases, the presidents involved in each theory will be the same. An example is the election that

took place in 2004, when George W. Bush was both the incumbent president who would have

 

28  

suffered systematic and economic punishment, as well as the elected president who would have

provided coattails to Republican congressional candidates. In other cases however, the

incumbent president and elected president will not be the same, nor even of the same party. Take

for example the election that occurred in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was the incumbent but

Ronald Reagan won the election. Here, the three theories attribute their effects to different

presidents. The two punishment theories test the public’s evaluation of president Carter’s

performance over the previous years, while the coattail theory refers to Reagan’s ability to help

elect Republican congressional candidates to office.

Fortunately, this is not a complication that exists during midterm elections. In these years,

the two punishment theories consider the president who has been in office the previous two years

(since t-1), and the coattail theory tests the influence of the same man in the election at time t.

Withdrawn coattails are attributed to the same president who won in the preceding on-year

election. In most2 cases, this man was president for the entirety of the time considered by the

punishment theories. Because of the complications just discussed for on-year elections, I will test

the three theories individually for both on-year and midterm elections, test the two punishment

theories together for both on-year and midterm elections, and then test all three together, but only

for midterm elections. I begin below by specifying the models.

iv. Models for Individual Theories

The first theory I test is the theory of Economic Punishment. Here, the hypothesis is that poor

economic performance over the previous year will cause voters to punish the president’s party in

midterm elections. These models are specified the same way for both on-year and midterm

election years, but there is no reason the coefficients should be constrained to be the same, so I

                                                                                                               2  The  only  exceptions  being  years  where  the  president  died  or  resigned  his  office.  In  these  cases,  his  vice  president  runs  in  the  midterm  elections.    

 

29  

run them separately for each type of election. I also ran each model separately for each type of

presidential leader. Equation 1 below gives the specification for Economic Punishment. If the

theory holds, the coefficient on GDP should be positive. In that case, above average growth is

rewarded while below average growth is punished through the loss of vote share.

(1) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3GDPt + νit

The second theory is that of Systematic Punishment. The theory says that during

midterms, voters systematically punish the president’s party in congressional elections,

regardless of other factors like economic performance. In order to capture this effect, the model

contains a variable specifying the president’s party. If the theory holds, this variable should have

a negative coefficient during midterm elections. That would indicate that the presence of a given

party’s president in the White House diminishes that party’s vote share in congressional

elections. A negative coefficient for the on-year election model would indicate that systematic

punishment occurs not only in midterms, but in presidential election years as well. Equation 2

below specifies the test for systematic punishment. I run it separately for on-year and midterm

elections, and also run it for each group of presidential leaders. The leadership type of the

incumbent president segments both Equations 1 and 2, as these theories both test punishment of

past performance.

(2) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresPartyt + νit

The final individual theory to test is the theory of Presidential Coattails. Unlike the

previous two theories, which required a single regression that could be run separately for on-year

and midterm elections, this model necessitates two separate equations:

(3) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresVotet + νit

(4) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresVotePrevt + νit

 

30  

The first equation (3) is the specification for on-year elections. In that model, I include a

variable for the two-party share of the national popular vote garnered by the winning president:

PresVote. If the coattail theory holds, this variable should have a positive coefficient. In that

case, winning the presidency would lead to an increase in the vote share captured by that party’s

congressional candidates. The second equation (4) is the specification for midterm elections. The

variable PresVotePrev represents the share of the two-party popular vote captured by the current

president, in the previous presidential election (at time t-1). The theory of withdrawn coattails

predicts a negative coefficient for this variable. The logic is that when the president wins the

popular vote by a larger margin, they will bring to office more representatives from their party

on their coattails, and the more representatives elected in this way, the more will be vulnerable to

the effect of withdrawn coattails in the following midterms. Equations 3 and 4 are run separately

for each type of president. While the incumbent president segments the models testing economic

and systematic punishment, the elected president segments the coattail models in order to reflect

the fact that it is the presence of the president elected at time t that has the effect on

congressional elections in the same year.

v. Models Testing Individual Theories Together

I am able to test the two theories of economic and systematic punishment together for

both on-year and midterm elections. As both theories reflect an evaluation of the past

performance of the same president, they can be tested in the same model while still segmenting

the data by leadership type. Including the two theories in a single model helps to provide more

accurate estimates, as testing each theory separately might overestimate the effect of each

individual variable in turn. I run Equation 5 separately for both on-year and midterm elections,

and then for each group of presidential leaders, segmented by the incumbent president. It

 

31  

includes both PresParty and GDP in order to test both theories simultaneously. These variables

should have effects in the same direction as predicted by the individual models above, but if

there was overestimation in those models the coefficients might now be smaller in magnitude.

(5) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresPartyt + ϕ4GDPt + νit

Finally, I will test all theories together, but only for midterm elections. As noted above,

during on-year elections, it is impossible to test all three together while still segmenting by

leadership type (some variables refer to the incumbent president and some refer to the elected

one). Because in midterm elections, there is no change in the man holding the presidency, all

variables refer to the same leader. Equation 6 below provides the specification for this final test.

(6) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresPartyt + ϕ4GDPt +ϕ4PresVotePrevt + νit

I estimated all the above models using OLS regression with district level fixed effects.

These fixed effects help to control for the status quo partisan leaning of each district, as well as

any other district specific characteristics that might influence the outcome of elections, but are

the same for that district in any given year. For instance, we expect the partisan leaning and thus

vote share for the Democratic candidate to be very different in Chicago verses in rural Texas.

Including fixed effects allows the model to account for these differences.

vi. Description of Variables

The models described above contain variables that are both time and district specific.

Panel data analysis allows for variation in both aspects at the same time. Variation across time is

indicated by a subscript of t, while variation across district is indicated by a subscript of i.

Demvoteit for instance, represents the share of the two-party vote gained by the Democratic

candidate in district i at time t, while GDPt in any given year is the same for each district, and

only varies across time.

 

32  

The dummy variables Incdem and Increp measure whether the incumbent candidate in a

given observation is a Democrat or a Republican. For Democratic candidate, Incdem is coded as

1 and Increp is coded as zero (vice versa for Republican candidates). These are included as

important control variables, as incumbency is a well-established advantage for congressional

candidates (Gelman and King 1990). Given that the dependent variable is the share of the two-

party vote garnered by the Democaratic candidate, we would expect Incdem to have a positive

coefficient, and Increp to have a negative coefficient.

PresParty measures which party had control of the White House at the time of the

election and is used to test the theory of systematic punishment. It is valued at 1 if the President

is a Democrat and -1 if the President is a Republican. This allows me to combine two opposing

effects into a single variable, simplifying the functional form of the model (as opposed to using

two dummies). It is also consistent with the method used by Levitt (1994). If the president is a

Democrat, then variable PresParty takes on the value of 1 and the theory of systematic

punishment predicts a negative coefficient representing a decrease in the Democratic vote share.

If the president is a Republican, then PresParty takes on the value of -1, so a negative coefficient

actually represents a positive effect (for ϕ <0, -1(ϕ) >0). This prediction is also in line with the

theory: If presidents are systematically punished, then we expect the presence of a Republican

president to have a negative effect on the Republican candidate’s vote share. This translates into

a positive effect for the Democratic candidate’s vote share, which is equal to 1 minus the

Republican’s vote share.

The two variables PresVote and PresVotePrev are included to test the theory of surge and

decline. In on-year election models, Presvote is the share of the two-party popular vote garnered

 

33  

by the winning presidential candidate, minus 50. With the exception of the election in 20003, this

should be positive for all presidents. It represents the strength of the president’s popularity; the

theory suggests that more popular candidates (those with a larger margin of victory) would have

larger coattails. PresVote is multiplied by -1 for Republican presidents. The logic to this is

similar to that for PresParty. A positive coattail effect for a Republican president should increase

the Republican candidate’s vote share, therefore decreasing the Democratic candidate’s vote

share.

In the midterm election models, PresVotePrev is equal to the value of PresVote in the

previous presidential election. As in the on-year models, it is multiplied by -1 for Republican

presidents. It is expected to have a negative effect, representing the effect of withdrawn coattails.

However, the withdrawn coattails of a Republican president, which would have a negative effect

on Republican candidates, should then have a positive effect on Democratic vote share. If there

is indeed a negative coefficient on PresVotePrev, then multiplying by the negative value for

Republican presidents should yield the expected positive effect on Democratic vote share.

Finally, GDP is measured as the deviation in the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product

(GDP) from the average growth rate over the entire time period studied. I first took the

difference between GDP in year t and year t-1, divided it by total GDP in year t-1, and then

subtracted the average of those values for the whole sample.4 For example, in 1998, GDP was

8.509 trillion US (1996) dollars, while GDP in 1997 was 8.160 trillion US (1996) dollars. This

                                                                                                               3 When George W. Bush won the presidency through the Electoral College, but did not win the national popular vote. 4 A note on notation: Thus far, when I have discussed elections in time t and t-1, I have been referring to time in two-year periods. For instance, at time t in 2000, time t-1 refers to 1998. Here, for GDP calculations (script) t and t-1 refer to single year periods.

 

34  

represents a growth rate of 4.28 percent. The average growth rate of GDP from 1912-2006 was

3.28 percent. Therefore, the value of GDP for the year 1998 is equal to 1 (4.28-3.28).

For Republican presidents, the value of GDP is multiplied by -1.The economic

punishment theory predicts a positive coefficient for GDP- the parties of presidents who preside

over years of growth are rewarded, while those who preside over decline are punished. In years

where there was a Republican president and above average growth, we expect the two-party vote

share for Republican congressional candidates to increase, and the share for Democrats to

decrease. Multiplying GDP by -1 for Republican presidents allows above average economic

growth to have a negative effect on the Democratic vote share when the coefficient on GDP is

positive, as the theory predicts. The logic in taking a deviation from the mean is that the public

has a standard in mind of acceptable economic performance, and compares performance over the

previous year with that established standard when evaluating a presidential administration. In

order to isolate economic fluctuations that were due to actual growth rather than inflation, all

GDP data is expressed in real 1996 dollars.

For all of the models, Demvote is the percentage of the two-party vote share won by the

Democratic congressional candidate in district i in year t. It is calculated by dividing the

Democrat’s percentage of the vote by the Democrat’s percentage added to the Republican’s, and

multiplying this ratio by 100. As in a previous example, if the Democratic candidate won 55

percent of the vote while the Republican won 40 percent, then Demvote would equal 55/(55+40)

* 100, or 58 percent. That concludes the methodological exposition of the thesis. I will now

present the results, beginning with the statistics for aggregate seat change.

 

35  

Chapter 4

Results: Aggregate Seat Change

Before I begin an analysis focusing on individual elections, I explore what the broad

swings in congressional control look like empirically. By Skowronek’s formulation, there have

been at least three major regime changes during the period studied in this thesis. The first is a

wave of Republican domination that encompasses the earliest leaders (Taft is the first incumbent

president considered, in 1912), up through and including Herbert Hoover. The election of

Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 marks the beginning of the second wave, one of Democratic control.

This second wave ended with Carter’s defeat at the hands of Reagan, in 1980. And though it is

beyond the scope of what Skowronek considers, this thesis argues that a fourth wave began in

2008, with the election of Barack Obama.

Skowronek’s theory suggests that with each wave of presidents, we should see a build up

of power at the beginning of a regime’s dominance, and then a gradual decline as the regime

fractures and makes way for another to take hold. In general, this would suggest congressional

gains for those presidents who come at the beginning of a regime, but decline in seat share for

those who follow. In fact, the biggest favorable swing might be expected when a Reconstructive

president first office, with the biggest loss expected at the end of a Disjunctive leader’s tenure.

While the regressions that come later in this thesis will consider seat changes during a single

election year, here I consider the aggregate seat change over a president’s entire tenure. The

statistics in Table 2 explore these relations.

 

36  

Table 2: Key Statistics By President Key Statistics By President

President Incoming Seat Gain Outgoing Seat Loss Total Seat Change FDR 23% N/A 6.12%

Reagan 7.92% -0.46% 4.90% Reconstructive Leaders

Obama 5.52% N/A N/A Hoover 7.12% -23% -27.90%

Carter 0.23% -7.92% -11.10% Disjunctive Leaders

W. Bush -0.34% -5.52% -10.50% Taft N/A -9.80% N/A

Harding 14.20% N/A -3.50% Coolidge N/A 7.12% 3.01%

Truman N/A -5.07% -6.81% Kennedy -4.73% N/A -5.40% Johnson N/A -1.05% -3.68%

Articulative Leaders

Bush -0.46% 2.07% -0.14% Wilson 9.80% -14.20% -28.40%

Eisenhower 5.07% 4.73% -6.04% Nixon 1.05% N/A *1.15%

Ford N/A -0.23% *-11.4%

Preemptive Leaders

Clinton -2.07% 0.46% -12.60% Notes: Elections in italics represent outliers within each presidential type N/A is listed where a president did not initially come to office through an election or did not serve their full term. Some figures for Taft come before the frame of analysis. *Indicates a potentially misleading figure- Ford may have been punished for Nixon’s actions when he left office before he could be hurt himself

There are a few important takeaways from the numbers above. First, the table indicates

that Reconstructive leaders see the biggest incoming gains when they are swept into office. On

average, these presidents gain 12.1 percent of the two-party vote share when they are first

elected. No other group of presidents comes close to this figure. Each of these gains has its

corresponding outgoing loss for a Disjunctive leader, who sees a loss of the same magnitude

when they leave office at the end of their term. Table 2 also confirms the hypothesis that

persistent regime gains come only at the beginning of each period of party dominance. With the

exception of Calvin Coolidge, no non-reconstructive president’s party controlled more seats at

the end of their tenure in office than at the beginning (Richard Nixon also technically gained

 

37  

seats over his tenure, but given the electoral punishment suffered by Ford in the following

midterms, I think it is safe to assume he would have lose those modest gains if he had served out

his full term).

Predictably, the Disjunctive presidents fall at the other end of the spectrum from the

Reconstructive leaders. Not one of these presidents from the tail end of a regime saw their party

lose less than 10 percent of the two-party vote share in the House. Additionally of note and

slightly more surprising is the fact that Preemptive leaders also fare poorly over their tenures in

office. These presidents find themselves opposed to a resilient regime; their party is in the midst

of a period of relative weakness, and yet they seem to weaken it further through their brief foray

into power. Rather than detract from the strength of the dominant regime, these opposition

leaders seem to strengthen it further, perhaps even prolonging its time at the forefront of political

discourse. As expected, the results for Articulative presidents fall somewhere in between

Reconstructive and Disjunctive leaders. They do not generally gain over their tenure, but rather

see modest losses in seat control. Their numbers might represent the slow withering of the

dominant regime as internal fractures begin to erode its support base.

A complication in the above analysis, as well as in the panel data analysis of on-year

elections that will follow, is the fact that frequently, the incumbent president for a given election

is not the same as the president elected. This makes it difficult to parse the effects for each

individual president. It is impossible to tell, for instance, if Reconstructive presidents gain so

much when first elected because they bring with them a tidal wave of support, or if what appear

to be their gains are really the massive punishment of Disjunctive leaders. One other

complication along these lines is specific to the transition from Nixon to Ford (mentioned in the

notes for Table 2). Gerald Ford saw a massive loss of seats in his first midterm election.

 

38  

However, it is difficult to determine for certain whether this loss came primarily from his

position as a Disjunctive leader. It seems more likely in fact that at least a portion of the huge

loss was rather retaliation against any vestige of the Nixon administration following his

resignation. In general, while these statistics on aggregate seat change are useful for determining

big picture trends, they do little to explain the mechanisms behind the large difference evident

for different groups of presidents. The more detailed panel data models that follow will attempt

to parse out these effects.

 

39  

Chapter 5

Results: Panel Data Models

I begin the panel data analysis by testing each theory individually. Though it is possible

that this approach will overestimate the effects of each mechanism on its own, it is a valuable

first step in exploring how the theories play out for each presidential type. The panel data

approach greatly expands the number of observations compared to the aggregate seat change

analysis. For the macro level models, each election year contains only one observation, a

measure of the change in the proportion of seats controlled by the president’s party. In contrast,

each election year in the panel data set corresponds with 435 observations, one for each district

represented in the House of Representative.

Even with this increased sample size, when I segment the data in order to run models

separately for each presidential type, there is limited variation for some of the major variables.

For instance, even though there are three Disjunctive presidents (Hoover, Carter, and W. Bush)

in the sample, they only have four midterm election years between them. This means that for the

regressions for Disjunctive presidents during midterms, there will only be four unique values for

variables like GDP and PresVotePrev. Perhaps even more significant are the limitations that

come from the small number of presidents in each category of Skowronek’s typology. With only

two Reconstructive presidents throughout the sample (FDR and Reagan), it is impossible to

determine whether the results that emerge for Reconstructive leaders are simply due to

idiosyncrasies common to these two men, or evidence of a general tendency inherent to the

Reconstructive leadership type.

These realities certainly present some limitations for inference, but I do not believe they

are fatal for my analysis. The idiosyncratic nature of the individual presents provides a challenge,

 

40  

but is also a potential benefit. Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan were two very different

men, who ruled in very different conditions, with very different priorities. While it is

undoubtedly possible that what appear to be the effects of Reconstructive leadership could

instead be the result of commonalities between these two men, the fact that they are each unique

individuals makes this less likely. In fact, given the vast range of their individual attributes,

evidence of a common trend between them, while not necessarily precise given the

aforementioned limitations, is certainly significant.

i. Economic Punishment

I test each theory separately for on-year and midterm elections, first for the entire sample

and then for leadership type. The first theory is Economic Punishment, which dictates that the

voters will judge the president and his administration based on the country’s economic

performance. If the economy performs well, they may reward the president’s party in

congressional elections. If however, economic performance fails to meet voters’ expectations,

the theory says that they will punish the president’s party for that poor performance. For

reference, Equation 1 below is the model specification for these regressions. The results for on-

year elections can be found in Tables 3, while those for midterms are in Table 4.

(1) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3GDPt + νit

The first column represents the results for all observations together, and is not segmented

by presidential type. It represents a baseline by which we observe deviations in the point

estimates for each type of leader. The coefficient on the GDP variable is interpreted as the

amount at which the growth rate for gross domestic product in the year preceding the election

deviated from the average annual growth rate for GDP throughout the sample. Average annual

growth for all the years covered was 3.28 percent. For reference, in a stronger economic climate,

 

41  

where GDP growth was one standard deviation (sd= 5.79) above average, or 9.07 percent, then

the coefficient of .412 implies that the Democratic candidate would receive an additional 2.39

percent of the two-party vote share:

Change in vote share = 0.412 (9.07 - 3.28) = 0.412 * 5.79 = 2.39

Table 3: Economic Punishment in On-Year Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) Deviation in Growth Rate of GDP 0.412*** 0.397*** 0.674*** -0.706*** 0.234*** (-14.11) (-6.33) (-14.31) (-3.41) (-4.23) Incumbent is Republican -13.648*** -8.773* -13.107*** -14.688*** -8.185*** (-14.57) (-2.42) (-7.39) (-10.05) (-3.39) Incumbent is Democrat 15.789*** 23.471*** 20.709*** 15.165*** 23.944*** (-16.93) (-6.47) (-11.64) (-10.46) (-9.95) Constant 52.523*** 46.397*** 48.175*** 55.281*** 45.100*** (-56.14) (-12.77) (-27.66) (-39.72) (-18.84) Overall R2 0.546 0.553 0.593 0.523 0.56 N 10251 2151 1238 3470 3392

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

Models 2-5 separate the effects by presidential leadership type. It is interesting to note

that, at least for these point estimates, Disjunctive presidents experience the most severe

economic punishment in on-year elections. This is in line with my hypothesis about these

leaders. As those presidents who come at the tail end of the regime, Disjunctive presidents can

seemingly do nothing right, and will be given no leeway when it comes to observable metrics of

performance like economic growth. The results in Table 3 for Articulative presidents are

puzzling. These presidents have a very high constant relative to the other groups, representing

the share of the two-party vote they would be expected to capture if all the other variables took

on the value of zero. Their coefficient for economic growth is in the opposite direction of what

we expect. There seems to be some strange interaction going on for these presidents, wherein a

 

42  

very high constant is balanced by the negative coefficient on economic growth. Explaining this

anomaly is beyond the scope of this project.

I also provide a graphical representation of the results for Economic Punishment. In

Figure 1 below, I use coefficients provided by the model and the standard deviation of GDP

growth to compute vote share levels for the Democratic candidate, given average growth, growth

that is one standard deviation above average, and growth that is one standard deviation below

average. One should note that in fact, standard deviations as well as average growth levels may

vary somewhat by presidential type, and thus these calculations are primarily for interpretive

value. They should not be interpreted as predictive figures. For simplicity, I assume the House

seat was open in the election. This allows both incumbent variables to take on the value of zero.

Figure 1: Graphical Representation of Economic Punishment in On-Year Elections

There are some interesting points to note in Figure 1. While Articulative presidents

achieve 50 percent of the two-party vote with average levels of growth, Disjunctive and

48.67   52.03   51.24   46.44  46.69   48.68  

54.75  

45.27  44.72   45.32  

58.27  

44.11  

0.00  

10.00  

20.00  

30.00  

40.00  

50.00  

60.00  

70.00  

Recon   Disjunc   Artic   Preempt  

On-­Year  Elections  

One  SD  Above  

Average  

One  SD  Below  

 

43  

Preemptive presidents must achieve much higher levels of growth in order to gain a majority of

votes. Preemptive presidents do not even meet the 50 percent mark for growth rates that are one

standard deviation above average. While the coefficients in Table 3 are illuminating, the graph in

Figure 1 throws into sharp relief the implications the variation across presidents can have for

actually winning congressional elections.

Table 4 presents the results of regressions testing the theory of Economic Punishment in

midterm elections. Immediately, we can see that the coefficient on GDP for the whole sample is

less than half of what it was for on-year elections. In fact, this effect seems to have gotten

smaller for all presidential types except Preemptive leaders, who see the opposite change. These

presidents had the smallest effect in on-year elections, but now have the largest point estimate.

This seems to indicate that Preemptive leaders are judged particularly strongly on their economic

performance during midterms, which is line with the fourth hypothesis outlined in the theory

section. Because these leaders tend to transcend traditional party divisions when building their

coalitions, it is difficult for the public to judge them on conventional criteria such as how they

are advancing the party platform. These results give credence to the fact that economic

performance, which transcends party lines just like these presidents often do, will be a

particularly important factor in the evaluation of Preemptive leaders.

Also in line with my theory is the fact that Reconstructive leaders see the smallest

significant effect. This seems to support the idea that these presidents are given some leeway in

their concrete performance. For presidents who come to power in these pivotal moments of

political time, it may be enough to simply move the country in a different direction from their

predecessor, whose methods had been so thoroughly discredited. A final note from the data in

Table 4 is the fact that Articulative leaders do not have a significant effect for Economic

 

44  

Punishment in midterm elections. The unusual results regarding their constant and opposing sign

for GDP that were present for on-year elections are absent during midterm elections. In general,

the data on Economic Punishment for Articulative presidents is fairly inconclusive.

Table 4: Economic Punishment in Midterm Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) Deviation in Growth Rate of GDP 0.202*** 0.185*** 0.416*** 0.058 0.466*** (-8.77) (-4.32) (-5.35) (-1.35) (-9.35) Incumbent is Republican -10.134*** -13.683*** -8.684** -8.508*** -12.276*** (-9.96) (-8.02) (-3.28) (-3.75) (-5.21) Incumbent is Democrat 20.158*** 17.868*** 30.711*** 22.327*** 19.320*** (-19.88) (-10.78) (-11.62) (-9.88) (-8.25) Constant 49.612*** 51.882*** 42.180*** 47.656*** 51.473*** (-48.2) (-31.38) (-16.31) (-21.25) (-22.18) Overall R2 0.535 0.477 0.628 0.534 0.534 N 10173 2158 1642 3035 3338

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

As I did for on-year elections, Figure 2 below presents a graphical interpretation of the

effect of Economic Punishment, using coefficients and standard deviations to depict Democratic

vote share levels. Noteworthy is the fact that Reconstructive presidents still attain the share of

votes necessary to win an election, even when they preside over economic growth that is a full

standard deviation below average. This is in sharp contrast to Disjunctive presidents, who fail to

capture 50 percent of the two-party vote, even when they preside over growth that is a full

standard deviation above average. This lends further support to my theory that Reconstructive

presidents will be insulated somewhat from poor economic performance, while Disjunctive

presidents can seemingly do nothing to insulate themselves from seat loss.

 

45  

Figure 2: Graphical Representation of Economic Punishment in Midterm Elections

ii. Systematic Punishment

The second theory I test is the theory of Systematic Presidential Punishment. Here, the

theory states that the president’s party will suffer losses in midterm elections, regardless of their

economic performance or any other observable factors. Voters simply vote against the

president’s party in midterm elections. If the theory holds, in midterm election models there

should be a negative coefficient on the PresParty variable, which is equal to 1 if the president is

a Democrat and -1 if the president is a Republican. It is less clear what the theory predicts for on-

year elections, but as the results below show (Table 5), there are some interesting results for

different types of leaders. For reference, the Equation 2 specified the model as follows:

(2) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresPartyt + νit

52.93  

44.53  47.66  

54.11  51.74  

41.87  

51.12  50.56  

39.20  

48.13  

0.00  

10.00  

20.00  

30.00  

40.00  

50.00  

60.00  

Recon   Disjunc   Artic   Preempt  

Midterm  Elections  

One  SD  Above  

Average  

One  SD  Below  

 

46  

Table 5: Systematic Punishment in On-Year Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) President's Party -0.003 2.234*** -3.874*** 1.963*** -2.006*** (-0.02) (-7.23) (-8.67) (-7.95) (-8.33) Incumbent is Republican -15.007*** -9.102* -18.208*** -16.775*** -7.148** (-15.89) (-2.52) (-10.13) (-11.74) (-2.98) Incumbent is Democrat 14.469*** 23.396*** 15.820*** 13.212*** 24.276*** (-15.4) (-6.47) (-8.77) (-9.28) (-10.17) Constant 54.554*** 47.313*** 54.644*** 56.585*** 44.602*** (-58.27) (-13.14) (-31.79) (-40.79) (-18.78) Overall R2 0.539 0.556 0.554 0.527 0.565 N 10251 2151 1238 3470 3392

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

The interpretation of the coefficient for PresParty is more straightforward than it was for

GDP in the models of economic punishment. It is simply the additional percent (or lost percent)

of the two-party vote share awarded to congressional candidates from having a president from

their party in the White House. Beginning with the pooled sample of all presidential types, it is

notable that the PresParty variable is not significant and has a very small point estimate,

indicating that there is no general pattern of systematic punishment in on-year elections.

However, the coefficients for each presidential type are illuminating. For instance, the positive

coefficient of 2.234 for Reconstructive leaders, representing an extra 2.234 percent of vote share

for the Democratic congressional candidate, suggests that these presidents are rarely punished in

on-year elections, rather, their party benefits simply from having its leader in office. The same is

true, but to a lesser extent (a smaller point estimate) for Articulative leaders, while Disjunctive

and Preemptive leaders both have significant negative coefficients. This analysis highlights the

importance of considering presidential leadership. Due to the conflicting effects on these

different types of leaders, the overall effect is insignificant, and yet, in one way or another,

 

47  

having a president from your party in office makes a difference for congressional candidates

running under each of type of president.

One potential explanation for these results comes from where these presidents fall in the

cycle of political time defined by Skowronek’s typology. Reconstructive leaders are always

followed by a president from their own party. They preside at times when their regime is perhaps

at its most resilient, following a whole-hearted repudiation of the other party. Articulative leaders

also belong to a resilient regime, though slightly less so than the Reconstructive leaders, as their

coalitions have had time to fracture. On the other hand, a president from the other party always5

follows Preemptive and Disjunctive leaders. Hence, we would at least expect them to experience

losses in the final election in which they were incumbents. This might at least in part explain

their negative coefficients.

Table 6: Systematic Punishment in Midterm Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) President's Party -2.007*** -0.512 -2.954*** -0.654* -4.525*** (-13.71) (-1.51) (-7.05) (-2.40) (-18.43) Incumbent is Republican -11.312*** -14.188*** -6.162* -9.213*** -12.423*** (-11.14) (-8.23) (-2.35) (-4.05) (-5.54) Incumbent is Democrat 19.577*** 17.200*** 33.822*** 22.051*** 18.775*** (-19.42) (-10.35) (-12.82) (-9.76) (-8.39) Constant 50.752*** 53.334*** 39.681*** 48.148*** 52.447*** (-49.56) (-32.4) (-15.24) (-21.42) (-23.56) Overall R2 0.541 0.474 0.632 0.536 0.56 N 10173 2158 1642 3035 3338

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

                                                                                                               5  Note  the  exceptional  Preemptive  case  of  Nixon,  who  is  coded  as  being  “followed”  by  Ford,  though  this  might  be  interpreted  as  merely  a  continuation  of  Nixon’s  administration.  

 

48  

The results for midterm elections are also illuminating, and generally fit the theory. Note

that there is support for the theory of Systematic Punishment in the model containing the entire

sample (Model 1). The coefficient of -2.007 indicates that on average, congressional candidates

capture 2.007 percent less of the vote share when their own party holds the presidency. For

example, a Democratic candidate running in an average district when a Republican was president

would garner 50.75 percent of the vote, while the same candidate running in the same district

when a Democrat was in the White House would garner only 48.74 percent. While the number

2.007 might appear small, in this case it represents the difference between a candidate that wins

and one who loses.

As hypothesized, Reconstructive presidents (Model 2) appear to be insulated from this

kind of systematic punishment. The coefficient on PresParty is statistically insignificant. My

hypothesis was that in their place at the helm of a newly powerful regime, these presidents would

be given some leeway in their performance. Remember from Skowronek that these presidents

have enormous warrants for change because the previous regime is so thoroughly discredited. As

long as they do something different that their predecessor, they will be perceived as moving the

country in the right direction (Skowronek 1993, p. 38). In contrast to Reconstructive presidents,

all other presidential types suffer, but at differing degrees. As expected, the coefficient for

Disjunctive leaders (Model 3) is relatively large. These presidents, who fall at the tail end of a

vulnerable regime, are likely to see their party lose, regardless of what they actually do in office.

The size of the coefficient for Preemptive leaders is difficult to explain. These presidents

seem to be judged particularly harshly at the midterms. The large coefficient for Systematic

Punishment may be a reflection of the general dissatisfaction with these presidents’ middle

ground approach to policy. Because they integrate aspects of both party’s platforms into their

 

49  

message, but do not fully cater to either group, these presidents often find that no one is happy

when they actually stick to that middle ground (Skowronek 1993).

In general, the results of the models on Systematic punishment demonstrate the utility of

separating the presidents by their leadership type. For the on-year elections, the size and

direction of the effect on PresParty vary across leadership type, and these varied effects cancel

each other out in the full model. While the effects are all in the same direction for midterm

elections, they still vary in magnitude, with Reconstructive and Articulative presidents seemingly

more insulated from systematic punishment.

iii. Presidential Coattails: Surge and Decline

The final theory to test individually is the theory of Presidential Coattails. Here, the

general hypothesis is that the explicit presence of the president on the party ticket in on-year

elections will bring additional voters both into the election and into alignment with his party.

Two years later, when the president is no longer physically on the ballot, some of those voters

who were pulled into the previous election will abstain, and those who were drawn to the

president’s party by his personal appeal will return to the opposing party’s ranks. Those

congressional candidates who won narrow victories because of presidential coattails will be

exposed in the following midterms, and there will be realignment back towards the opposing

party.

If the theory holds, there should be positive coefficients on PresVote in on-year elections

and negative coefficients on PresVotePrev in midterms. I present the results for on-year elections

in Table 7. The regression for the entire sample has the predicted effect (see Model 1). The

coefficient of 0.316 can be interpreted as follows: PresVote represents the surge to the winning

president. It measures how large the majority was for the winning candidate by taking their share

 

50  

of the two-party popular vote, and subtracting 50. For instance, if a Democrat won the

presidential election with 60 percent of the vote, this would translate into a value of 10 for

PresVote. The leadership group specific coefficients are generally in line with my hypotheses.

For instance, the largest coattails appear to be for Reconstructive and Articulative presidents.

Hypothesis 1 predicts that Reconstructive presidents would have large coattails, as they

tend to be popular leaders who usher in sweeping changes to the dominant political rhetoric.

Hypothesis 3 predicts large coattails for Articulative presidents as they provide a unified

message for their party while running for president. Also as expected, there is no significant

coattail effect for Disjunctive presidents. Given their lack of personal popularity and particular

political moment, when the regime has mostly run its course, it is not surprising that these

presidents are unable to carry additional member of their party into congressional office. The

coefficient for Preemptive leaders falls somewhere in between: indicating the presence of some

coattails for these presidents, but not as large as those for the two other types.

Table 7: Presidential Coattails in On-Year Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) President's Share of Vote in the Election 0.316*** 0.413*** 0.093 0.454*** 0.088** (-18.37) (-11.5) (-1.18) (-14.26) (-2.78) Incumbent is Republican -12.907*** -13.328*** 3.637 5.595 -16.530*** (-13.84) (-7.95) (-0.81) (-1.42) (-12.66) Incumbent is Democrat 16.111*** 14.382*** 38.695*** 39.321*** 13.521*** (-17.4) (-8.69) -8.64 (-10.01) (-10.45) Constant 52.898*** 54.403*** 31.822*** 33.422*** 55.548*** (-57.27) (-33.5) (-7.12) (-8.54) (-44.15) Overall R2 0.549 0.507 0.646 0.579 0.523 N 10251 2591 1611 2593 3456

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

 

51  

Using a similar method of interpretation as used above for the models of economic

punishment, I calculate vote shares yielded for each presidential type at levels of PresVote that

are average, one standard deviation above average, and one standard deviation below average.

The results are below in Figure 3. Again, these values are not meant to be exact, as standard

deviations in PresVote are different for each presidential type. One trend that is immediately

evident from Figure 3 is the fact that in no case do coattails make the difference between

candidates that are above or below 50 percent of the two-party vote share. Both Reconstructive

and Preemptive leaders find themselves easily above 50 percent even for coattails that are one

standard deviation below average, while Disjunctive and Articulative leaders are far below 50

percent even with coattails that are one standard deviation below average.

Figure 3: Graphical Representation of Presidential Coattails in On-Year Elections

During midterm elections there is evidence of withdrawn coattails for all leadership

types, as well as the full sample, evidenced by the negative coefficient on PresVotePrev. Using

the coefficient for the whole sample in model 1 as a reference, we can compare the point

54.97  

31.82   34.05  

55.64  56.95  

36.23  

56.06  58.9  

38.4  

56.48  

0  

10  

20  

30  

40  

50  

60  

70  

Recon   Disjun   Artic   Preempt  

Two-­Party  Vote  Share  to  Dem

ocrat  

Presidential  Coattails  in  On-­Year  Elections  

One  SD  Below  

Average  

One  SD  Above  

 

52  

estimates for the other types in Table 8 below. Interestingly, Reconstructive presidents have the

smallest withdrawn coattail, contrary to my predictions. Given these presidents charismatic

nature and the dramatic rhetorical changes they represent, I expected them to have large coattails,

as well as a large corresponding drop-off. However, these findings may indicate that these

presidents are so well received that they draw support to their party, even when they are not

actually running in the election themselves, isolating congressional candidates from some of the

effects of withdrawn coattails.

Table 8: Withdrawn Coattails in Midterm Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) President's Share of Vote in Previous Election -0.258*** -0.087* -0.725*** -0.181*** -0.523*** (-14.02) (-2.19) (-7.90) (-5.89) (-16.25)

Incumbent is Republican -11.854*** -14.427*** -9.402*** -9.357***

-13.957***

(-11.64) (-8.35) (-3.59) (-4.15) (-6.11) Incumbent is Democrat 19.231*** 17.107*** 30.512*** 22.596*** 17.577*** (-19.06) (-10.3) (-11.67) (-10.05) (-7.73) Constant 51.041*** 53.581*** 42.624*** 47.429*** 53.760*** (-49.81) (-32.42) (-16.66) (-21.26) (-23.77) Overall R2 0.542 0.474 0.634 0.542 0.553 N 10173 2158 1642 3035 3338

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

Also of note is the fact that Disjunctive leaders have the largest effect from withdrawn

coattails, followed by Preemptive leaders. In fact, the general trend is that those groups of

presidents who had the largest coattails in on-year elections had the smallest coefficients for

withdrawn coattails in midterm elections. There are two possible explanations for this somewhat

counterintuitive trend. The first is that there is far less variance in the presidential vote for

Disjunctive leaders. If for instance, these presidents consistently barely win elections and thus

PresVotePrev is very small, then there may actually be a small effect even with the large

 

53  

coefficient. The second possible explanation is that the coattail variable is picking up an effect

from an excluded factor, such as one of the punishment variables. If these variables are

correlated within the different groups of presidents, then the exclusion of one may bias the

coefficient of the other. The results of the models that test all three theories together during

midterms, presented in Table 11 later in this section, may provide some additional clarity.

Figure 4 below presents the same graphical interpretation, this time for midterm

elections, using the standard deviation and average of PresVotePrev for the entire sample. In

contrast to the depiction for on-year elections, withdrawn coattails do make the difference

between gaining a majority of the two-party vote share or not, but only for Disjunctive

presidents. The other three groups of presidents are either always below or always above 50

percent for the various levels of withdrawn coattails depicted in the graphic.

Figure 4: Withdrawn Coattails in Midterm Elections

In general, the data on coattails are consistent with my hypotheses for the surge

component during on-year elections, but are more puzzling for the decline that occurs in midterm

elections. It is especially perplexing that those types of presidents that had the smallest coattails

52.61  

34.56  

45.42  47.94  

53.03  

38.03  

46.29  50.45  53.45  

41.51  

47.15  52.96  

0  

10  

20  

30  

40  

50  

60  

Recon   Disjunc   Artic   Preempt  

Two-­Party  Vote  Share  to  Dem

ocrat  

Withdrawn  Coattails  in  Midterm  Elections  

One  SD  Above  

Average  

One  SD  Below  

 

54  

in on-year elections also had the largest effects from withdrawn coattails during the midterms. I

would hypothesize that some of these unusual effects come from the fact that the variables

designed to measure punishment are omitted from these models. The model may be

misattributing a loss in vote share that actually comes from Systematic or Economic Punishment

to a loss from withdrawn coattails. The results of the model testing all three theories together,

presented in Table 11 later on, provide some insight to this effect.

iv. Combined Punishment Models

I next test the two punishment theories simultaneously. As mentioned in Chapter 3: Data

and Methodology, I cannot test all three models together because of differences in which

president is being considered by the punishment theories verses the coattails theory during on-

year elections. Table 9 presents the results of the two punishment theories together for on-year

elections. Testing the two theories together does not change the expected direction of the effects.

The model (originally specified in Equation 5) is as follows:

(5) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresPartyt + ϕ4GDPt + νit

GDP should still have a positive coefficient, indicating rewards for above average growth and a

decline in vote share for below average growth. The theory for Systematic Punishment makes no

real predictions for on-year elections, yet the models testing this theory alone found significant

effects for every type of president, but of different magnitudes and in different directions. If the

individual models overestimated the effects of each type of punishment on its own, we would

expect the coefficients to decrease in magnitude for the combined model.

 

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Table 9: Economic and Systematic Punishment in On-Year Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) President's Party -0.329* 2.633*** -0.004 2.643*** -2.439*** (-2.36) (-3.5) (-0.01) (-10.03) (-9.86) Incumbent is Republican -13.412*** -9.265* -13.108*** -15.001*** -7.010** (-14.24) (-2.56) (-7.37) (-10.42) (-2.95) Incumbent is Democrat 15.999*** 23.294*** 20.708*** 14.637*** 24.233*** (-17.08) (-6.43) (-11.64) (-10.24) (-10.23) Deviation in Growth Rate of GDP 0.423*** -0.088 0.674*** -1.523*** 0.378*** (-14.31) (-0.58) (-11.04) (-6.95) (-6.73) Constant 52.284*** 47.623*** 48.176*** 56.521*** 44.344*** (-55.57) (-13.09) (-27.64) (-41.01) (-18.8) Overall R2 0.546 0.556 0.593 0.532 0.569 N 10251 2151 1238 3470 3392 * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

The results presented in Table 9 above are not entirely predictable. The first column (Model 1)

represents the results for the entire sample, and fits the theoretical implications. There is a

positive coefficient on GDP, representing rewards for above average economic performance and

punishment for below average growth. There is also a small negative coefficient on PresParty,

indicating that a small amount of systematic punishment occurs in on-year elections as well. The

coefficients take on a similar pattern for Preemptive presidents, while the other groups present

some interesting differences. For instance, neither Reconstructive nor Articulative presidents

appear to experience systematic punishment in on-year elections; rather, they seem to benefit

from having a president of their party. This is not entirely unexpected, as the two punishment

theories pertain primarily to effects during the midterms, but presents an interesting difference

that exists between different leadership types. GDP seems to be most important for Preemptive

and Disjunctive leaders (who have the largest point estimate), while it has a puzzling negative

effect for Articulative leaders, suggesting that their parties benefit electorally from economic

 

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downturn. It has no significant effect for Reconstructive presidents, which fits with the idea that

they are somewhat insulated from concrete expectations of performance.

Table 10: Economic and Systematic Punishment in Midterm Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) President's Party -1.880*** -0.814* -2.582*** -0.661* -4.329*** (-12.79) (-2.37) (-6.05) (-2.42) (-15.73) Incumbent is Republican -11.191*** -14.158*** -7.389** -9.022*** -12.945*** (-11.05) (-8.25) (-2.81) (-3.96) (-5.71) Incumbent is Democrat 19.726*** 17.760*** 32.833*** 22.146*** 18.409*** (-19.61) (-10.71) (-12.45) (-9.8) (-8.17) Deviation in Growth Rate of GDP 0.167*** 0.204*** 0.311*** 0.06 0.085 (-7.27) (-4.69) (-3.96) (-1.4) (-1.59) Constant 50.343*** 52.180*** 39.671*** 48.067*** 52.760*** (-49.21) (-31.5) (-15.31) (-21.38) (-23.59) Overall R2 0.543 0.479 0.635 0.536 0.56 N 10173 2158 1642 3035 3338

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

The regression results for midterm elections, presented above in Table 10, are perhaps

more important for this study, as the punishment theories pertain primarily to midterm elections.

Here, we again expect a positive coefficient on GDP, as well as a negative coefficient on

PresParty, indicating the presence of systematic punishment. Here we see that the regression for

the whole sample is almost completely in line with the predictions of the punishment theories.

One interesting observation is the fact that economic performance seems to be more important in

presidential election years than at the midterms. This was true as well in the models that only

tested economic punishment. There are fewer types of presidents for which GDP is significant

during midterms, and when there are significant effects, the point estimates are around half of

what they were in the results for on-year elections.

 

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In contrast to the models that considered on-year elections, for midterms all four

presidential types exhibit some effects from systematic punishment, with the strongest effect

coming for Preemptive leaders. These presidents also had the largest point estimates for

regression testing Systematic Punishment alone. Before, I reasoned that this might be the result

of a general dissatisfaction with the middle ground policies these presidents implement, which

tend to make no one happy (Skowronek 1993). Both Reconstructive and Articulative presidents

experienced systematic punishment at lower levels than the full sample, while Disjunctive

leaders saw more severe effects (yet not as strong as for Preemptive leaders).

A final interesting point to note about the combined punishment models is the overlap

with the models testing each punishment individually. There does not seem to be a marked

decrease in the effect size for each type of punishment in the combined models. This indicates

that the individual models did not grossly overestimate each theory on its own and lends

credence to the fact that they are useful for inference. Had the effects been much smaller in the

combined models than for each individually, there would likely have been some omitted variable

bias in the individual models, and we would need to exercise a good deal of caution with those

results. Fortunately, this does not seem to be the case.

v. All Three Theories Together: Midterm Elections Only

Finally, I run a model testing all three theories simultaneously, but only for midterm

elections, due to the complications discussed in Chapter 3. Testing all three theories together

should help to avoid overestimation of each individual theory. Equation 6 below specifies the

model and the results will follow in Table 11.

(6) Demvoteit = α0 +ϕ1Incdemit + ϕ2Increpit + ϕ3PresPartyt + ϕ4GDPt +ϕ4PresVotePrevt + νit

 

58  

The first thing to note is the first column (Model 1), which represents the results for the whole

sample of presidents. All three theories are represented here and have their predicted effects,

even when tested together. The results for each individual group of presidents are generally less

consistent with expectations.

Let us first look at the results for Systematic Punishment. The first row represents the

point estimates for PresParty, the test for Systematic Punishment. While Reconstructive and

Preemptive presidents exhibit the expected negative coefficients, both disjunctive and

Articulative presidents have positive coefficients, indicating the opposite effect from what is

predicted by the theory. In the combined punishment models just presented in Table 10, these

presidents had coefficients with the expected negative effect. This is a case where the addition of

the coattail theory dramatically changes the effects of the other theories, though as I will note

below, I can skeptical of these results.

The results for Economic Punishment are also mixed. While the positive coefficient on

GDP appears as expected for Reconstructive and Articulative leaders, there is no significant

effect for Preemptive presidents and Disjunctive presidents have a puzzling negative effect,

indicating improved vote share for below average growth. This is another case where one of the

punishment theories had its predicted effect in the individual model and that for combined

punishment, but had an opposing effect in this final model. One possible explanation of these

unusual effects will follow.

 

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Table 11: All Three Theories in Midterm Elections

(1) All

(2) Reconstructive

(3) Disjunctive

(4) Articulative

(5) Preemptive

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

Point Estimate

(t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) (t-statistic) President's Party -1.101*** -3.309* 3.519*** 2.784*** -3.396*** (-4.55) (-2.22) (-3.61) (-5.34) (-7.39)

Incumbent is Republican -11.562*** -13.710*** -11.545*** -7.795***

-13.013***

(-11.38) (-7.91) (-4.34) (-3.45) (-5.74) Incumbent is Democrat 19.505*** 18.154*** 28.779*** 24.154*** 18.308*** (-19.38) (-10.85) (-10.8) (-10.72) (-8.13) Deviation in Growth Rate of GDP 0.153*** 0.285*** -2.894*** 0.118** -0.084 (-6.57) (-4.45) (-6.17) (-2.75) (-0.98) President's Share of Vote in the Previous Election -0.125*** 0.298 -4.384*** -0.458*** -0.215* (-4.06) (-1.72) (-6.93) (-7.73) (-2.54) Constant 50.581*** 51.220*** 49.501*** 45.030*** 53.068*** (-49.39) (-29.31) (-16.93) (-19.91) (-23.71) Overall R2 0.544 0.479 0.645 0.545 0.561 N 10173 2158 1642 3035 3338

* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

Before I discuss the limitations of this full model, I turn to the theory of Withdrawn

Coattails. Aside from the statistically insignificant positive coefficient for Reconstructive

leaders, all the presidential leadership types demonstrate the negative effects of withdrawn

coattails. The absence of a significant effect for Reconstructive leaders is important in itself, as

these leaders have large coattails and thus would be predicted to have a larger decline in

midterms. Another peculiarity is the fact that Disjunctive leaders, who did not exhibit any

coattails in the individual test of that theory (Table 8), appear to have the strongest effect here

from withdrawn coattails.

One possible explanation for the unusual effects that appear in this final model is the

effect of multicolinearity. For instance, GDP and PresVotePrev are very highly correlated for

Disjunctive and Preemptive leaders (-.94 and -.79 respectively, relative to -.18 for the whole

 

60  

sample). The correlation of these two variables can bias the results and could explain the strange

coefficients present for all three theories in this last model. It also seems like the smaller sample

size created by segmenting the presidents by leadership type has some effect on the reliability of

the results. There seem to be far fewer irregularities across models for the group containing the

whole sample of presidents (Model 1), with differences only appearing in the magnitude of

coefficients and never in the direction of effects. However, for each group of presidents there is

less consistency between the models testing each theory individually and those testing all three

together. Further study could be undertaken to attempt to determine more exactly the sources of

bias in this final model, yet that analysis is beyond the scope of this project.

 

61  

Chapter 6

Conclusions

Ultimately, the empirical models show that the well-established pattern of midterm

decline does not behave in the same way for all types of presidents. In fact, they show support

for the idea that where a president falls in political time may not only affect his ability to directly

exercise his office, as Skowronek hypothesizes, it may also determine how his party fares in

congressional elections. Given that a president's ability to advance his agenda is often contingent

on his party's congressional strength, his position in political time may also influence his political

success indirectly.

Reconstructive presidents, by the very nature of where they fall in the cycle of political

regimes, may have extraordinary repudiative powers and executive license, not only because of

their personal position as a Reconstructive president, but also because they can muster continued

congressional support for their agenda. If members of their party in congress are isolated from

some of the mechanisms of midterm decline, as these results show, these Reconstructive

presidents have an additional advantage over the presidents who follow.

Disjunctive presidents on the other hand, may be perceived as complete failures for a

reason beyond the fact that their position forces them to advance a platform that has become

antithetical to what the public perceives as good for the country. They may also be hit

particularly hard by the mechanisms that cause midterm decline or be specially insulated from

those mechanisms that traditionally help the president's party in on-year elections, such as the

effect of presidential coattails. These trends diminish the congressional strength of their party

and make it difficult to pass any legislative initiative, even those which might actually help solve

the country's problems.

 

62  

The models testing individual theories show that Reconstructive presidents are somewhat

insulated from economic and systematic punishment, as I hypothesized in the earlier theory

section. It makes sense that as early leaders in a resilient regime, they are given a heavy license

for change without concrete expectations for results. Preemptive and Disjunctive presidents seem

to be hit hardest by both kinds of punishment, which makes sense given that they are always

followed by a president from the other party, a revival of the opposing regime. I found it

particularly interesting that Preemptive presidents experienced such severe systematic

punishment, evidence perhaps of serious dissatisfaction with their middle of the road approach to

politics.

In the coattail models, Reconstructive and Articulative presidents have the largest

coattails, as I predicted in Chapter 2. Disjunctive leaders do not have significant coattails, a

reflection of their lack of personal appeal and perception as an incompetent leader. It is very

difficult for a leader to bring like-minded candidates into office when he can muster little

political support for himself. The initial summary statistics regarding aggregate seat change,

presented in Chapter 3, indicated that the parties of these presidents tend not to gain seats in the

on-year elections, but also experience less of a drastic seat loss during midterms, in sharp

contrast to the pattern evident for other types of presidents.

While the results from the model testing each theory simultaneously are less clear cut or

conclusive, they do indicate that there are certainly differences in how each theory plays out for

the different leadership types. The relative importance of each effect is difficult to test given the

lack of variation for some variables for each segmented group of presidents. This can bias

coefficients and create the kind of puzzling effects seen in Table 11. This is one drawback that

comes with exploring how these theories play out for different types of presidential leaders. In

 

63  

trying to pin down more exact mechanisms of midterm decline for different types of presidents, I

lose some of the variation necessary to produce consistent, unbiased statistical models.

However, I still believe the results presented in this paper are useful and illuminating.

What is clear from the results in Tables 3-11 is that the mechanisms of midterm decline do not

necessarily operate the same for presidents who fall in different segments of political time. For

some of the analyses, there is variation across groups of presidents in both the magnitude and

direction of effects. What this means for the decisions of future leaders is not yet clear, but there

is certainly merit to further exploration, given that presidents may have far less power than they

think to influence the outcomes of congressional elections.

As I noted in the Introduction, the magnitude of midterm seat loss is far from constant

across presidents, and a thorough understanding of the mechanisms that lead to declines of such

varied magnitudes could have enormous implications for legislative strategy. Such an

understanding may influence which policy initiatives the majority party prioritizes in the months

leading up to a midterm election, or cause the minority party to attempt to stall vulnerable

initiatives if they expect to take power in the near future.

The existing literature attempts to parse out some of the variation in midterm seat loss,

through both qualitative and quantitative research that has produced theories such as those of

Economic Punishment, Systematic Punishment, and Presidential Coattails (or Surge and

Decline), all of which are incorporated in this project. However, this thesis adds a final piece to

the puzzle, developed by Skowronek (1993) and studied in the context of Presidential Authority,

through his own work, and even in a case study of midterm elections (Price 2002). It explores

how presidential leadership, as defined by Skowronek, can exert influence on the outcomes of

congressional elections, both in the context of differences in aggregate seat change as well as in

 

64  

the very mechanisms of midterm decline. Throughout the thesis, it becomes clear that while there

is more work to do in determining the exact effects of presidential leadership, there are certainly

important differences in the mechanisms and magnitudes of midterm decline across leadership

types, a trend that has significant implications for legislative strategy, and merits further

consideration and analysis.

 

65  

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