Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind

By Gary C. Jacobson

How is Donald Trump’s presidency likely to affect the reputation and popular standing of the Republican Party? Profoundly, according to Gary C. Jacobson. From Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama, every postwar president has powerfully shaped Americans’ feelings, positive or negative, about their party. The effect is pervasive, influencing the parties’ reputations for competence, their perceived principles, and their appeal as objects of personal identification. It is also enduring, as presidents’ successes and failures continue to influence how we see their parties well beyond their time in office.    

With Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind, Gary C. Jacobson draws on survey data from the past seven administrations to show that the expansion of the executive branch in the twentieth century that gave presidents a greater role in national government also gave them an enlarged public presence, magnifying their role as the parties’ public voice and face. As American politics has become increasingly nationalized and president-centered over the past few decades, the president’s responsibility for the party’s image and status has continued to increase dramatically. Jacobson concludes by looking at the most recent presidents’ effects on our growing partisan polarization, analyzing Obama’s contribution to this process and speculating about Trump’s potential for amplifying the widening demographic and cultural divide.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Feb 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780226589480

Book preview

Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind

Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind

Gary C. Jacobson

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

© 2019 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2019

Printed in the United States of America

28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19    1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-58920-6 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-58934-3 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-58948-0 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226589480.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jacobson, Gary C., author.

Title: Presidents and parties in the public mind / Gary C. Jacobson.

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018037061 | ISBN 9780226589206 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226589343 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226589480 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Presidents—United States—Public opinion. | Political parties—United States—Public opinion. | Public opinion—United States.

Classification: LCC JK2265 .J33 2019 | DDC 324.273—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037061

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For Martin and Barbara Shapiro

Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Preface

ONE  /  Introduction

TWO  /  The Coevolution of Affect toward Presidents and Parties

THREE  /  Evaluations of Parties and Party Leaders

FOUR  /  Assessments of Party Competence

FIVE  /  Cognitive Views of Parties

SIX  /  Party Identification I: Partisan Change

SEVEN  /  Party Identification II: Generational Imprinting

EIGHT  /  Elections

NINE  /  Polarized Parties, the 2016 Elections, and the Early Trump Presidency

TEN  /  Conclusion

Appendix: Data Sources

References

Index

Footnotes

Tables

2.1a  Change in Democratic Party affect as a function of change in Democratic candidate affect

2.1b  Change in Republican Party affect as a function of change in Republican candidate affect

2.2  Coefficients from regressions of party affect on candidate affect over the 2008 election year

3.1  Approval of the president’s job performance and favorable views of president’s party

3.2  Positive views of the president and positive views of president’s party

3.3  Consistent positive or negative opinions of the president and his party (percent)

3.4  Consistent approval/disapproval of president’s performance and favorable/unfavorable opinions of his party (percent)

3.5  Favorable opinion of opposition party as a function of presidential approval

3.6  Positive views of the president and the opposition party

3.7  Approval of the president’s job performance and approval / favorable opinion of the president’s party or party leaders in Congress

3.8  Ratings of the president and president’s congressional parties performance as excellent or pretty good (Harris Polls)

3.9  Approval of the president’s job performance and opinion of opposition party or party leaders in Congress

3.10  Ratings of the president and opposition congressional party’s performance as excellent or very good (Harris Polls)

3.11  Approval of the president’s job performance and approval of parties or party leaders in Congress, controlling for congressional approval

3.12  Ratings of the president and congressional parties performance as excellent or pretty good, controlling for quarterly congressional approval (Harris Polls)

3.13  Approval of the president’s job performance and approval of parties or party leaders in Congress, controlling for congressional approval, by control of the House, G. W. Bush and Obama administrations

3.14  Effects of president’s thermometer ratings on party thermometer ratings, 1978–2016 (regression coefficients)

3.15  Relationships between party and president thermometer ratings over time

3.16  Party thermometer ratings as a function of the president’s thermometer scores (Democracy Corps Polls)

4.1  Presidential approval and perceptions of relative party competence

4.2  Estimated effects of presidential approval on individual respondents’ perceptions of relative party superiority in handling the most important problem

4.3  Presidential approval and the party more trusted to cope with the nation’s problems

4.4  Presidential approval and preference for president or rival congressional party in handling national problems

4.5  Approval of the president’s handling of the economy and party advantage on managing the economy

4.6  President’s party’s advantage over rival party in Congress in trust on handling the economy as a function of approval of president’s performance on the economy

4.7  The effects of presidential approval on education on relative party reputation for handling education

4.8  Approval of the president’s handling of foreign policy and party advantage on managing foreign policy, Reagan through Obama administrations

4.9  Approval of G. W. Bush’s handling of terrorism and the Republican Party advantage on dealing with it

4.10  Approval of president’s job performance and opinion on which party is better for / cares more about people like you or the middle class

5.1  ANES questions on ideology and policy positions from the cumulative data file

5.2  Regression of mean locations of parties on locations of presidents / presidential candidates across election years

5.3  Regression of mean locations of parties on locations of presidents / presidential candidates across election years, by party identification

5.4  Effects of president/candidate location on party location on the 7-point liberal–conservative scale (regression coefficients, individual surveys)

5.5  Effects of president/candidate location on party location on the 7-point issue scales (regression coefficients, individual surveys)

5.6  Changes in party location on ideology and issues scales as a function of changes in the president’s location (with controls)

5.7  Coefficients from regressing party locations on presidents / presidential candidates and House candidates locations on the 7-point ideology and issue scales (with controls)

5.8  Coefficients from regressing placement of Democratic Party on placement of Barack Obama and Democratic congressional candidates on the 7-point liberal–conservative scale, 2010–2014

5.9  Coefficients from regressing placement of the Republican Party on placement of Mitt Romney on the 7-point liberal–conservative scale, 2012

5.10  Coefficients from regressing placements of the parties on placement of the presidential candidates, Obama, and the House and Senate candidates on the 7-point liberal–conservative scale in 2016 (with controls)

6.1  The effects of presidential approval on changes in individual party identification

6.2  The effects of presidential approval on changes in individual party identification (with lagged presidential approval)

6.3  Presidential approval and change in party identification between panel waves (weighted averages)

6.4  Change in party identification as function of change in candidate affect, 2008–2009

6.5  Presidential approval and macropartisanship

7.1  Party identification of whites, 1952–2016 (percentages)

8.1  Ticket splitting and party loyalty in presidential and state elections (percentages)

8.2  Net generic vote for president’s party’s candidate as a function of presidential approval

8.3  Net preference for president’s party’s control of congress as a function of presidential approval

8.4  Net number of House seats won or lost by the president’s party, 1946–2016

8.5  Presidential approval and partisan voting in midterm elections, 1974–2014 (percent defecting to other party’s House candidate)

9.1  Polarized views of parties as a function of polarized views of the president

9.2  Age, education, and the presidential vote in 2016 (percent voting for Trump)

9.3  Opinions of groups and policies in 2016

9.4  Favorable opinion of the Republican Party as a function of Trump’s job approval (January 2017–April 2018)

Figures

2.1   Correlations between party identification and candidate/president affect, 1956–2004

2.2   Correlations between party identification and president / presidential candidate thermometers, 1968–2016

2.3a   Correlations between party identification and favorable views of Bush, Gore, and Clinton, December 1999–January 2001

2.3b   Correlations between party identification and favorable views of Bush and Kerry, October 2003–November 2004

2.3c   Correlations between party identification and favorable views of Obama, McCain, H. Clinton, and Bush, December 2007–November 2008

2.4   Favorability of partisans toward Obama and McCain, December 2007 through November 2008

2.5   Correlations between party identification and thermometer ratings of Obama, H. Clinton, Bush, and McCain, 2008–2009

2.6a   Effect of presidential or presidential candidate affect on party affect, controlling for party identification, Republicans

2.6b   Effect of presidential or presidential candidate affect on party affect, controlling for party identification, Democrats

2.7   Effect of ratings of candidates/presidents on ratings of their parties, by status and party identification

2.8   Effect of presidents’ / presidential candidates’ thermometer ratings on party thermometer ratings, controlling for party identification, 1978–2016

2.9   Correlations between candidate and party affect, by party identification, 2008

2.10   Relative impact of party identification and candidate affect on party affect

2.11   Relative impact of candidate/president affect on party affect, controlling for party identification, January–October 2008

2.12   Relative effect of Eisenhower and Nixon affect on Republican Party affect, 1956–1968, controlling for party identification

2.13   Relative effect of Republican leaders’ affect on party affect, controlling for party identification

2.14   Relative effect of Democratic president/candidate thermometer on Democratic Party thermometer, controlling for party identification

2.15   Relative effect of Republican president/candidate thermometers on Republican Party thermometer, controlling for party identification

3.1a   Presidential approval and favorable opinions of the president’s party, Clinton, G. W. Bush, and Obama administrations

3.1b   Positive opinions of the president and his party, Clinton, G. W. Bush, and Obama administrations

3.2   Approval of G. W. Bush’s performance and favorable opinions of the Republican Party across time

3.3a   Approval of Bill Clinton’s performance and favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, by party identification

3.3b   Approval of George W. Bush’s performance and favorable opinions of the Republican Party, by party identification

3.3c   Approval of Barack Obama’s performance and favorable opinions of the Democratic Party, by party identification

3.4   Strength of opinions of president and favorable opinions of his party

3.5   Approval of the president and Congress 1993–2016 (quarterly averages)

3.6   Approval of the president’s job performance and approval of his party or party leaders in Congress

3.7a   Approval of Clinton and Democrats in Congress, by party identification

3.7b   Approval of G. W. Bush and Republicans in Congress, by party identification

3.7c   Approval of Obama and Democrats in Congress, by party identification

3.8   Rating of president and president’s party in congress as doing an excellent or pretty good job (Harris Polls)

3.9   Mean thermometer scores for the president and his party, by party identification, 1978–2016

4.1   Party superiority on handling the most important problem, Truman through Obama administrations

4.2   Partisan opinions of party competence, Truman through Obama administrations

4.3   Presidential approval and relative party preference on most important problem

4.4   Approval of Clinton’s performance, by domain (quarterly averages)

4.5   Approval of G. W. Bush’s performance, by domain (quarterly averages)

4.6   Approval of Obama’s performance, by domain (quarterly averages)

4.7   Party advantage on handling the economy, 1981–2017

4.8   Approval on economy and party advantage on the economy

4.9   Average annual Democratic advantage in dealing with health care issues

4.10   Opinions on the ACA, Obama’s handling of health care, and Democratic Party superiority on health care

4.11   Democratic Party advantage on handling education

4.12   Party advantage on handling foreign policy, G. H. W. Bush to Obama administrations

4.13   Presidential approval on foreign policy and president’s party’s advantage on foreign policy

4.14   Party advantage on handling terrorism, 2001–2016

4.15   Approval of G. W. Bush’s handling of terrorism and the Republican Party’s advantage on the issue

4.16   Party better able to prevent World War III

4.17   Presidential approval and opinion on which party cares more about people like you or the middle class

5.1   Ideological location of parties and presidential candidates, by partisans

5.2   Average locations of the parties and presidents / presidential candidates on the liberal–conservative scale, 1972–2016

5.3   Location of presidents/candidates and parties on 7-point scales, 1972–2016

6.1   Party identification, 1993–2016 (leaners excluded)

6.2   Party identification, 1993–2016 (leaners included)

6.3   Democrats’ share of party identifiers, 1993–2016

6.4   Presidential approval and macropartisanship, Clinton, G. W. Bush, and Obama administrations (monthly averages of Gallup Polls)

7.1   Party identification, by year respondent turned 20 (leaners included)

7.2   Party identification, by year respondent turned 20 (leaners excluded)

7.3   Party identification by president at age 20 (leaners included)

7.4   Party identification by president at age 20 (no leaners)

7.5   Democratic share of party identifiers by race/ethnicity and year respondent turned 20 (leaners included)

7.6   Racial/ethnic composition of the respondent population by year respondent turned 20

7.7   Approval of Barack Obama’s job performance, 2009–2016

7.8   Approval of Obama’s job performance, by age group

7.9   Approval of G. W. Bush’s job performance, by age group

7.10   Approval of Obama’s performance by party and year respondent turned 20, 2014–2015

7.11   Ideology by year respondent turned 20

7.12   Ideology of Republicans by year respondent turned 20

7.13   Ideology of Democrats by year respondent turned 20

7.14   Ideology of pure independents by year respondent turned 20

7.15   Summary issue positions, by party ID and age group, 2014

7.16   Republicans’ opinions and media use, by age group

7.17   Approval of Obama’s performance, by race/ethnicity

8.1   Effect of the presidential vote on the House Vote 1952–2016 (regression and correlation coefficients)

8.2   Effects of the presidential vote on the Senate Vote, 1948–2016 (regression and correlation coefficients)

8.3   States and districts delivering split outcomes in presidential and congressional contests, 1952–2016

8.4   Ticket splitting in national elections, 1952–2016

8.5   Party loyalty and defection in presidential and House elections, 1952–2016

8.6   Party loyalty and defection in presidential and Senate elections, 1952–2016

8.7   Correlations between the vote for president, state assembly, US House, and party registration in California, 1968–2016

8.8   Presidential approval and generic US House vote

8.9   Presidential approval and preference for party control of Congress

8.10   Midterm House and Senate votes congruent with presidential approval, 1946–2014 (percent)

8.11   Effects of presidential approval on the House and Senate vote, controlling for incumbency and party identification, midterm elections

8.12   Effects of presidential approval on the House and Senate vote, controlling for incumbency and party identification, presidential election years

8.13   Is your vote for Congress a vote for or against the president?

9.1   Partisan differences in presidential approval, Eisenhower to Trump (quarterly averages)

9.2   Partisan thermometer ratings of presidential candidates, 1968–2016

9.3   Correlations between racial resentment and reactions to parties and candidates

9.4   Approval of Trump’s job performance, January 2017–April 2018

9.5   Approval of Obama and Trump’s job performances, by demographics (Obama’s last year, Trump’s first year)

9.6   Republicans’ opinions of Trump, the Republican Party, and Republicans in Congress and their leaders

Preface

The idea for this book originated in research for an earlier book on the public’s reaction to President George W. Bush’s performance and policies, particularly regarding the Iraq War. I suspected that the growing unpopularity of Bush and the war during his second term might have inflicted collateral damage on the Republican Party, and I found evidence that it did. This raised the question whether performance ratings of other presidents affected their party’s public standing, and the answer, after some additional research, was a clear yes. While pursuing that question, I discovered the wide variety of ways in which opinion surveys had, over the postwar period, sought to measure popular reactions to presidents and their parties. These studies have produced a remarkably rich trove of data for examining myriad ways in which modern presidents have influenced their party’s popularity, reputation for competence, assumed policy commitments, appeal as objects of identification, and electoral performance. I reported analyses of some of these data in a series of papers and journal articles but eventually decided that only a book would be adequate to the data and subject. The result is in your hand (or on your screen). I had intended to end the book with Barack Obama’s just-completed presidency, but Donald Trump’s disruptive election and singular early presidency raised intriguing questions about how he might be affecting his party’s public standing, so where possible I have extended my analyses to cover his election and first year as well.

The book could not have been written without the help and encouragement of many colleagues and friends. My graduate students and faculty colleagues at UC San Diego were first to hear many of the arguments presented here and have been generous in their comments and critiques; the contributions of Amy Bridges, Zoli Hajnal, Seth Hill, Sam Kernell, Thad Kousser, Rick Kronick, Megumi Naoi, Simeon Nichter, Sam Popkin, and David Weins deserve special recognition. Beyond my department, I’ve benefited from comments from the participants in conference panels where some of this material was first presented, with special nods to Jon Bond, Larry Bartels, Hans Noel, John Sides, Steve Rogers, Lynn Vavreck, and John Zaller. My largest collegial debt, however, is to George W. Edwards III, who as editor of Presidential Studies Quarterly encouraged me to submit and agreed to publish some of my initial findings there.

I am also grateful to Chuck Myers, Holly Smith, and Ruth Goring at the University of Chicago Press and to my indexer, Meg Wallace, for their diligent and proficient work in seeing this project to its completion.

My most profound obligation, however, is to all of those involved in gathering and disseminating the countless surveys that have gone into making this book. The gatherers include a long list of academic and commercial survey researchers whose contributions are cited throughout the following pages. Prominent among them are the venerable Gallup Poll, with useful surveys stretching back to Harry Truman’s presidency; several decades of polls sponsored by the major media firms; and the high-quality surveys conducted in recent years by academic and charitable institutions. The American National Election Studies (both the time series covering every presidential election since 1952 and several specialty studies) and the newer comprehensive academic election studies, notably, since 2006, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, have also been essential to the project. Far too many people have contributed importantly to these studies for me to name them all here, but I am especially grateful to the ANES’s principal investigators, from Warren Miller and his Michigan colleagues to today’s Vincent Hutchings, Shanto Iyengar, and Ted Brady, as well as to the outstanding roster of scholars who have served on the ANES board of overseers over the years, for keeping the enterprise going so well for so long. I also owe special thanks to talented people behind the CCES, created and led by Steve Ansolabehere and Brian Schaffner and executed by Doug Rivers and an exceptional staff, notably including Ashley Grosse, Samantha Luks, and Liz Salazar.

I am also deeply obliged to the people and institutions that have made the data accessible to scholars. Foremost is the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, formerly at the University of Connecticut under Paul Herrnson’s direction, now at Cornell University under Peter Enns’s leadership. The Roper archives are the source of a large majority of the surveys I examine in the following chapters. The Pew Research Center has also been generous in disseminating its collection of high-quality surveys. I am particularly obliged to Michael Dimock, the Pew Center’s former director of polling and current president, not only for his help in acquiring data but also, as my graduate student many years ago, for introducing me to the graphic capabilities of Excel. I also owe PollingReport.com for my daily fix of marginals on the wide range of political questions I routinely track, including many analyzed here.

Last but not at all least, I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the millions of ordinary citizens who have agreed over the decades to participate in political surveys. Their usually unsung and unrewarded acts of civic engagement have been indispensable to the work of monitoring, explaining, and evaluating modern democracy in America.

Finally, I take great pleasure in dedicating this book to Martin and Barbara Shapiro, mentors and friends since my very first undergraduate foray into political science more than fifty years ago. Their inspiration and example put me on a career path that has become only more rewarding over the ensuing years.

Some of the research reported here appeared in journals listed below, and I appreciate the permissions they grant to their authors to include in later work material first published in their pages:

The Effects of the George W. Bush Presidency on Partisan Attitudes. Presidential Studies Quarterly 39:2 (June 2009): 172–209. ©2009 Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

The President’s Effect on Partisan Attitudes. Presidential Studies Quarterly 42:4 (December 2012): 683–718. ©2012 Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

How Presidents Shape Their Party’s Reputation and Prospects: New Evidence. Presidential Studies Quarterly 45:1 (March 2015): 1–28. ©2015 Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

The Coevolution of Affect toward Presidents and Their Parties. Presidential Studies Quarterly 46:2 (June 2016): 1–29. ©2016 Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

The Effects of the Early Trump Presidency on Public Attitudes toward the Republican Party. Presidential Studies Quarterly, forthcoming. ©2018 Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

The Obama Legacy and the Future of Partisan Conflict: Demographic Change and Generational Imprinting. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 667 (September 2016): 72–91. ©by the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Polarization, Gridlock, and Presidential Campaign Politics in 2016. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 667 (September 2016): 226–46. ©by the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

The Triumph of Polarized Partisanship: Donald Trump’s Improbable Victory in 2016. Political Science Quarterly 132:1 (2017): 1–34. ©2017 by the Academy of Political Science.

Donald Trump, the Public, and Congress: The First Seven Months. Forum 15:3 (October 2017): 525–45. ISSN (Online) 1540-8884, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2017-0034. ©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH Berlin/Boston.

ONE

Introduction

The reciprocal bonds between American presidents and their political parties are nearly as old as the republic. The national parties developed to compete for the presidency—the Democratic Party’s roots go back to the campaign to elect Thomas Jefferson in 1800—and, by fielding slates of pledged electors, reduced the electoral college to an accounting device, democratizing the choice of president and strengthening the executive’s hand in the constitutional system. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, and inspired in good part by pursuit of the presidency, suffrage and national party organization expanded together. Party entrepreneurs, assembled at national conventions, sought to nominate candidates who could excite and mobilize a growing mass electorate. The party-printed ballots of the time inhibited ticket splitting, and the fate of a party’s down-ballot candidates depended heavily on the drawing power of the top of the ticket. Once a president was elected, his chief duty was, except in times of crisis, to dispense the patronage jobs and other spoils of office that helped keep the party in business.

Progressive-era reforms at the end of the century led eventually to fundamental changes in party organization (by undermining patronage-based party machines) and electoral processes (by introducing primary elections and the Australian ballot), but pursuit of the White House remained the focus and purpose of national party activity, and success or failure at the top continued to echo down the ticket. Moreover, the dramatic expansion of the executive branch in the twentieth century that gave presidents a vastly greater role in national government also gave them a vastly enlarged public presence, magnifying their role as their party’s preeminent public voice and face. Modern presidents have thus had a profound and pervasive impact on how the public views their parties, or so I argue in this book, which examines the influence of every postwar president on popular opinions and beliefs about his party.

That influence, I find, has been pervasive. The president’s words and actions articulate and define his party’s current principles and objectives. Judgments about the president’s competence in managing domestic and foreign affairs inform assessments of the party’s competence in such matters. The components of a president’s supporting coalition, and the interests he favors while governing, help to define the party’s constituent social base and thus its appeal as an object of individual identification. People’s affective reactions to the president, whatever their source, inevitably color their feelings about the other politicians in his coalition. Every president thus shapes public attitudes toward his party as well as beliefs about who and what it stands for and how well it governs when in office. Insofar as the party label represents a brand name, the president bears prime responsibility for the brand’s current image and status. The most proximate and concrete consequences for the president’s party register when the ballots are counted on election day, but presidents also affect their parties’ fortunes in the longer run, for their successes or failures influence partisan attachments, identities, and images that remain long after they are gone from the scene.

The idea that modern presidents (and presidential candidates) have been prime movers in shaping the national parties is of course neither new nor controversial. Scholars have produced a rich literature on how they have constructed or reconstructed the parties’ electoral coalitions, dealt with national and local party organizations, sought to influence their congressional parties, and managed the executive branch to serve partisan goals (for example, Milkis 1993; Galvin 2010; Smith and Seltzer 2015; Skowronek 1997; Kriner and Reeves 2015; not to mention the major accounts of each presidential campaign and presidency that cover such matters). This literature typically treats presidential candidates and presidents as strategic actors pursuing their own career and policy goals within (or battling) the constraints imposed by existing national conditions and other institutional players, including their party coalitions. It focuses on the president’s dealings with party elites in and out of government, with the broader public as a secondary if ultimately crucial audience; its main concern is with parties as institutions. My concern here, in contrast, is with the ways in which presidents affect how that public audience comes to regard those institutions. As we shall see, the president’s influence on popular beliefs and attitudes toward the parties occurs quite independently of, for example, his deliberate party-building activities or lack thereof (Galvin 2010) or position in political time (Skowronek 1997). It also occurs whether the president intends it or not. All presidents cultivate public support, and if they are successful, their party benefits. But public support and a pleasing image for their party is not always a priority, and even when it is, much of what shapes both is beyond the president’s control.

Presidents do not assume office with a blank partisan canvas, of course. Existing partisan biases and party images shape reactions to future presidents as soon as they arrive on the national stage and continue to exert a powerful influence on evaluations of their performance throughout their time in office. For each administration, however, these initial reactions are the starting point, a product of the existing configurations of public attitudes toward and beliefs about parties, revised or reinforced during the president’s successful campaign, that are subsequently updated in response to developments during the president’s years of service.

My aim in this book is to flesh out and defend these various claims by examining a vast and diverse set of survey and other data on presidential candidates, presidents, and their parties that have accumulated over the past seven decades. I begin in the next chapter by analyzing how affective reactions to parties and presidents evolve together over the course