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28 September 2005

Congress Tarred with the Same Brush

Not only have President Bush's approval ratings been hurt by an unpopular occupation in Iraq, a sagging economy, and more recently a poor response to the Katrina disaster. He has been taking the Republican Congress down with him. As the figure shows, patriotism around 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq obviously helped both the president and Congress. Rising deficits, the Schiavo case, and lack of action on Social Security reform are apparently responsible for dropping approval ratings. These are the lowest congressional approval ratings since the early 1990s.


approval2.jpg

There is an interesting asymmetry to note. A quick Granger causality test on the data shown here suggests that the president's approval ratings affect those of Congress, but not the other way around. In other words, a popular president helps the Congress improve its image, but so too does a disliked president drag them down. This finding is based on a small N of 56 months between February 2001 and September 2005, but I am unaware of any argument like this in the literature. (Note that the data end just before Katrina hits.) Does this result hold more generally? Is it true under divided government?

Posted by Barry Burden at September 28, 2005 4:39 PM

Comments

The question of course is how this gets translated in the midterm elections. In the recent Schmidt-Hackett race in Ohio, the Republican candidate won 13% points less of vote share relative to Bush in 2004. Does anyone know the estimated size of "negative coattails" in previous elections?

Posted by: Sunshine Hillygus at October 5, 2005 5:07 PM