Reasons for Choosing a Candidate

Rather than choosing among candidates on the basis of specific issues of public policy, voters may rely more on general evaluations of the performance of government. A presidential election is, at least in part, a referendum on the performance of the incumbent administration. This referendum aspect surely is present when the incumbent president is running for reelection, but even when the incumbent president is not running for reelection, as was the case in 2016, voter attitudes toward the performance of the administration play a strong role in the election.

Retrospective evaluations of government performance are an important determinant of voting behavior, and this effect should be distinguished from the influence of policy issues (Fiorina 1981, 3-12; Miller and Shanks 1996; 370-388). Policy issues involve differences over what the government should do; they are prospective in nature. Performance evaluations involve differences over how well the government has done; they are retrospective in nature. Quite often, we find agreement over what the government should accomplish but disagreement over how well the goals have been achieved. Basic goals such as low unemployment, low inflation, steady economic growth, national security, and world peace are shared by all. Candidates do differ in their prescriptions for economic health or national security, but discussions of the details of macroeconomic theory or of diplomatic strategies may not be followed by many voters. More relevant are general perceptions of whether the economy or national security has improved or declined in recent years. Deservedly or not, the incumbent president usually gets credit for a healthy economy and receives blame for an unhealthy one.

The importance of these factors is reflected by the emphasis given to them in recent presidential elections. Republicans in 1980 sought to tie negative evaluations of the economy and the international environment to perceptions of President Jimmy Carter’s competence. In 1984, the Republican emphasis was on the improvement in the economy and the international environment that occurred during Ronald Reagan’s first administration. Similar claims were made by Republicans in 1988, while Democrats countered that everything was not so well off. In 1992, Democrats argued that President George H. W. Bush was responsible for the poor health of the economy, while the Republicans claimed that the nation’s economic problems were being exaggerated by the media. In 1996, President Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign highlighted the peace and prosperity of the past four years. In 2000, many observers felt that Al Gore did not spend enough time in his campaign talking about the economic record of the Clinton administration; as vice-president, Gore should have been able to benefit from the prosperity of the previous eight years. In 2004, questions about how well President George W. Bush had managed the war in Iraq were central to the election campaign. In 2008, widespread concerns about both the economy and the war in Iraq shaped Barack Obama’s campaign strategy. In 2012, the slow economic recovery was the factor Republicans highlighted in their attempt to defeat Obama. In 2016, Donald Trump claimed that Obama had mismanaged many things, from the economy to the terrorist problems in the Middle East.

The importance of the economy in presidential elections is illustrated by the results of the above elections. Five of these elections produced a change in party control of the White House; three of the changes occurred in years when the economy was in a downturn: 1980, 1992, and 2008. Also, while the economy in 2016 was growing, there was concern among many voters that their economic situation was not improving, which helped Trump carry some key states. The influence of evaluations of economic performance on voting behavior involves several factors. First is the voter’s assessment of national conditions, such as the state of the economy. A second factor is the voter’s evaluation of government performance in dealing with the conditions. For example, a voter might feel that national economic conditions have improved but that it is not because of the actions of the federal government. Also, we should distinguish between government performance in general and presidential performance in particular, at least if we are concerned with presidential elections. A voter might feel that the federal government is responsible for the poor state of the economy, but that it is Congress, not the president, that deserves the blame. Similarly, a voter could believe that the incumbent presidential administration deserves little credit for a healthy economy, a claim made by many Republicans in 2000. For the most part, though, voters tend to assign economic responsibility to the president in particular and his party in general, which is why a deteriorating economy is usually bad news for the party in the White House.

Economic conditions may affect perceptions of government performance, and thereby the vote, in two ways (Kiewiet 1983). One possibility is that the effect is largely a personal one, with voters reacting primarily to their own economic situation—for example, blaming the administration in power if unemployment and inflation have made their situation worse than it had been. The other possibility is that voters evaluate the economic performance of an administration quite apart from their own economic circumstances. As the economy deteriorates, people may feel that the president is doing a poor job, even if they have not personally suffered. This dataset contains information on a variety of assessments and perceptions of economic conditions and government performance, thereby allowing for an examination of the role of retrospective evaluations in voting behavior.

Foreign affairs and national security are another dimension along which voters may evaluate the performance of the incumbent administration. In some years, this has been a major factor. For example, dissatisfaction with the handling of the Korean War by President Harry Truman and the Vietnam War by President Lyndon Johnson contributed greatly to Republican victories in the 1952 and 1968 presidential elections, respectively. In 2004, national security in general and the war in Iraq in particular were salient topics in the presidential election. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were in part public policy issues, as they involved the policy question of whether we should have attacked Iraq or become involved in Afghanistan, but these wars also involved performance evaluations, especially since Democratic criticism claimed that the Bush administration was poorly managing the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq and the fighting in Afghanistan. Both of these wars continued to be issues in 2008, although their salience diminished during the year as the domestic economic crisis grew. In 2012, evaluations of the performance of the Obama administration in foreign affairs and national security tended to be favorable, based largely on the successful effort to track down and kill Osama bin Laden, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and the establishment of a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. In 2016, the Obama administration was criticized for not successfully dealing with several problems, including the prolonged civil war in Syria, the success of the Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria, and the intervention of Russia in the Ukraine.

Voters also judge candidates by their personal characteristics. Included among the relevant characteristics are such things as the experience, honesty, morality, compassion, competence, and leadership ability of the candidates (Holian and Prysby 2015; Nimmo and Savage 1976; Page 1978, 232-265). Apart from how they see the candidates on the issues, voters form images of the personal qualities and abilities of the candidates, and these perceptions are important influences on the vote. One important aspect of personal character is the perceived honesty and trustworthiness of the candidates—what might be termed an integrity dimension. Another important dimension, which might be termed competence, involves the experience and knowledge of the candidates; in particular, voters are unlikely to vote for someone whom they feel lacks the experience and ability to handle the job of president. A third important dimension involves the leadership ability of the candidates. Those who are perceived as strong and inspiring leaders are much more likely to be preferred by the voters. Finally, there is an empathy dimension; voters favor candidates whom they see as concerned and caring about people like them. These four dimensions of personal traits may vary in their importance; perhaps one of the dimensions will be particularly important in any given election, while another will be relatively unimportant in that election (Holian and Prysby 2015, 104-110, Miller and Shanks 1996, 425-427).

The character traits of the candidates received considerable attention in the 2016 presidential election, perhaps more than in any other recent election. Democrats criticized Donald Trump for his lack of political experience, his shallow understanding of many issues, his bombastic and inflammatory rhetoric, and his lack of integrity. Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton focused especially on her integrity, but her lengthy record of government experience led to charges that she was too much of an insider in a system that was badly broken. Trump’s inexperience became, according to this narrative, a virtue, not a liability: he was the outsider who could clean up the mess in Washington.

While candidate character traits received particularly great attention in the 2016 presidential election, other recent presidential elections also have focused on the significance of candidate character traits, such as competence in 1980, leadership in 1984, patriotism in 1988, trustworthiness in 1992 and 1996, integrity and leadership ability in 2000, decisiveness and leadership in 2004, and leadership and empathy in 2008 and 2012. Voters seem to regard their vote for president as a very personal one, and they consider the character of the candidates seriously. Moreover, candidates have often emphasized such traits when they felt that it would be advantageous to do so. The dataset contains a number of measures of respondent evaluations of candidate personal characteristics, allowing one to examine the influence of these factors in 2016.