Retrospective Voting

In the process known as retrospective voting, voters make decisions about the future based on judgments of the past. A candidate with a record in office is likely to be evaluated on that as to his or her chances of success in another term or a higher office. For an incumbent, retrospection by the voters usually means reelection, but it can also mean rejection.

In 1980 and 1992 voters issued negative verdicts on the performances of presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush, each of whom saw his public support plummet as economic problems overwhelmed his administration.

By contrast, in 1984 President Ronald Reagan's performance was judged favorably on the whole, and he [Page p416]rolled to a landslide reelection victory. With Reagan ineligible to run again in 1988, his vice president, Bush, clearly benefited from the public perception that Reagan had performed well and that Bush would stay the course.

As Bush's challenger in 1992 and as the incumbent in 1996, Bill Clinton benefited from retrospective voting, as Reagan had in 1980 and 1984. Facing a choice of reelecting Clinton or trading him for Robert J. Dole, another known entity in U.S. politics, the voters again chose Clinton.

In electing him twice, however, the electorate did not give Clinton a mandate for drastic change in government policy. Both times he won with less than a majority of the popular vote, and in the 1994 midterm election he received a setback to his program with loss of Democratic Party control of both chambers of Congress. Four years later, however, in the middle of his second term, Clinton and his party defied expectations by gaining five seats in the House and keeping the existing party balance in the Senate. Although the results did not remove Congress from GOP hands, they were all the more remarkable because Clinton was in the midst of a sex scandal that threatened his presidency.

Voters are notoriously skeptical of campaign promises. For them, past performance is a more credible indicator of prospective performance. An experienced politician is likely to be kept on the job if he or she has a record of accomplishment and an ideology acceptable to the general public. But if the public feels an incumbent has stumbled in significant ways, it might be inclined to give someone else a chance.

An example of the former is the 1964 Democratic landslide—a year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy—that extended Lyndon B. Johnson's White House stay. The landslide greatly strengthened Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and enabled the president to gain congressional approval for a wide range of social welfare legislation, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the War on Poverty. Many of Johnson's “Great Society” programs had been on Kennedy's agenda, but in his brief presidency Kennedy had been unable to push them through. With his mandate and mastery of legislative arm-twisting, Johnson gained enactment of much of the Kennedy-Johnson program.

Similarly, Reagan's election in 1980 resulted in a reordering of government priorities as the share of funds allocated to the military was increased, the rate of growth in domestic social spending was restricted, income tax rates were reduced, the budget deficit was allowed to grow, deregulation of the economy began, and the Supreme Court became more conservative as a result of three Reagan appointees.

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