Governors and the presidential race
Or, one more thing that won't affect the presidential race
Now that we're past the season on speculating about who will be the vice-presidential nominee ... oh wait, maybe not ... let's take the time to think about another dynamic that will receive press coverage out of proportion to its known impact: the impact of governors on the presidential race.
As we get closer to November there will be media discussion about the ability of governors to "deliver" the state for their party's presidential candidate. Expect to hear this a lot about Jeb Bush in Florida, and Ed Rendell in Pennsylvania.
But what evidence is there that governors exert much, if any influence, on the presidential race. There is definitely evidence that presidential approval ratings [in the off years] or votes, influence state-level races but not the other way round.
I suspect that these gubernatorial influences are small, and that much of what passes in the media for a governor's influence merely restates the already known information on partisan strength in a given state.
Still, let's consider some of the ways in which holding the governorship could help "deliver" a state for a presidential candidate.
positive factors
- Holding a state's governorship is at least an indicator of relative party strength, and a governor may be able to command through his/her own personal following that some party activists get to the polls.
- Control of the state government's budget may allow state governors to stimulate some kind of political business cycle in time for the presidential race. But (1) most state governments can't run deficits like the feds can, so there is no printing money at the state level and (2) this is probably only possible in states where a party has unified control of the executive and legislature -- and those probably aren't swing states anyway.
- A governor could be a useful campaigner, and organizer of an election campaign in a particular state, alerting the candidate to what issues might play well here and there.
- Influence over the state justice and law enforcement system. Here we get to gubernatorial influence which is decidedly malign. Yes, a governor could presumably purge the rolls of blacks but not Cubans, and even with a vigilant media and opposition, such things may have some impact at the margins. But to admit that this is how governors might "deliver" states is to admit of rank corruption in state governments.
- Governors also presumably influence some influence over the election machinery, but this will probably be limited since the Secretary of State is a separately elected office in many states, and county governments also have substantial influence over the election-day mechanics of a race.
neutral or informational factors
- As mentioned, holding a state governor's office presumably provides some indication of relative party strength, but this is really information about partisan prospects.
- A governor's approval ratings may have some coattail effects, but if the governor is not actually on the tickets it's harder to see how this would work on many voters. Voters are, for the most part, capable of separating their preferences about different candidates and voting accordingly.
negative factors
- Though I mentioned above that voters were capable of distinguishing between different offices and voting accordingly, it's possible that if a governor is truly, horrifically unpopular and the presidential candidate has been associated with him/her, the presidential candidate could lose votes. I suspect that the effect here could be asymmetric -- the losses from association with a bad governor outweigh the gains from a good one.
Posted by robe0419 at July 16, 2004 5:56 PM
