Indirect Presidential Influence, State-Level Approval, and Voting in the U.S. Senate

Abstract

In the current era of polarization, bipartisanship between a president and senators of the opposite party seems unlikely. Yet, we expect that given a senator’s desire to please his constituents and ensure reelection, if a president is popular with constituents in a senator’s home state, he can have an indirect influence on the senator’s votes. We test this relationship using state-level presidential approval data, which are a district level cue for senators. The results suggest that when a president is popular with a senator’s constituents, the senator becomes increasingly likely to cast a vote in support of the president’s agenda regardless of partisanship. In fact, as approval in an opposite party senator’s state increases, his agreement rate increases by a greater margin than it does for senators of the president’s party. We also test the effect of reelection and determine that it tempers the bipartisanship a popular president can incite.