Presidential Strength
The power of the president really matters, especially in regards to the public seeing their executive as imperial or imperiled. This is most obvious when presidents have a weakened position.
In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan stormed to a decisive victory, aided no doubt by President Jimmy Carter’s weakened position over the Iran hostage crisis. His popularity dropped from over 50% at the start of the year to the low 30s and the affair “paralysed his presidency” in the words of the New York Times. The release of the hostages minutes after Reagan’s inauguration further highlighted the contrast between the two’s presidential authority.
Other issues can be over disputes with branches of government. Some of President Trump’s hallmark pledges went unfulfilled, in part due to coming into conflict with Congress. In 2019, a double-digit quantity of Republican Senators voted against emergency funding for his border wall whilst even a Republican majority could not manage to pass a bill to overhaul the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). 1990 saw George Bush have to u-turn on his famous pledge “read my lips: no new taxes”, after a Congressional compromise, which eroded his support in 1992. More historically, Andrew Johnson constantly had vetoes overridden by Congress whilst John Tyler was disowned by his own party!
The Supreme Court too can hinder a president, most famously demonstrated during the Watergate affair. The unanimous 9-0 decision in United States v. Nixon (1974) that ruled the president had to hand over White House recordings harmed Nixon so much so that he became the only president to ever resign over the potential consequences. Pardoned by successor Ford, this harmed the Republicans in the 1976 election, with as many as two-thirds disapproving of Nixon at the end of his tenure and the decision causing a notable drop in support.
Abraham Lincoln in 1864, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 (and later 1940 and 1944), and George Bush in 2004 can all be seen as examples of imperial presidents whose popularity aided them to electoral success in the form of re-election.
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