Integrity and Presidential Approval, 1980–2000

Abstract

Do individuals' assessments of the president's integrity consistently affect their evaluations of his job performance? Previous research suggests that they might, but extant studies typically do not directly examine the effects of these assessments. Those that do have examined only a few time points, leaving the question of whether integrity assessments consistently affect approval across presidencies unresolved. Further, they do not examine the effects of integrity on Bill Clinton's approval after the Lewinsky scandal, a time when many argued that integrity assessments were irrelevant to evaluations of his job performance. This study examines the effects of integrity assessments on approval of four presidents using 10 surveys from 1980 to 2000. Integrity assessments are found to influence approval throughout the period, although the magnitude of their effect varies somewhat. Further, integrity assessments affected approval for Clinton in about the same way they shaped approval for previous presidents. Although most studies of presidential approval focus on the economy and foreign affairs, these results suggest that evaluations of the president's job performance are in part evaluations of the president himself. However, more politically substantive factors exert far greater influence on approval. Therefore, approval is tied to far more than just good character, which reflects favorably on the quality of the public's evaluations of their presidents.