Job approval ratings for state governors, unlike those for the United States president, have been relatively inaccessible to political scientists. We introduce the U.S. Officials Job Approval Ratings (JAR) dataset, a new compilation of gubernatorial job approval ratings—along with senatorial and state-level presidential ratings—that draws together many of these ratings, beginning with the first published rating in 1947 and extending through 2000. We describe some of the characteristics of these data, especially the kinds of rating scales used and their impact on overall approval assessment. We then show that 1993–2000 presidential approval levels varied widely from state to state and are correlated with state-level support for Clinton in the 1996 presidential election. Finally, we note that while gubernatorial approval often declines over time, many governors remain popular over the length of their term.

We explore the effect of the transparency of fiscal institutions in government on the scale of government and gubernatorial approval using a formal model of accountability. We construct an index of fiscal transparency for the American states from detailed budgetary information. With cross-sectional data for 1986-95, we find that—on average and controlling for other factors—fiscal transparency increases both the scale of government and gubernatorial approval. Our results imply that more transparent fiscal institutions induce greater effort by politicians, to whom voters give higher job approval, on average. Voters also respond by entrusting greater resources to politicians where fiscal institutions are more transparent, leading to larger government.

The connection between the government and the governed is often evaluated using election results. This article explores this connection between elections using data on gubernatorial approval in the states. Specifically, I ask the question, Do governors with greater job approval ratings have greater influence over the state bureaucracy than governors with lower approval ratings? Measures of both gubernatorial influence and administrator contact with gubernatorial staff are regressed on gubernatorial approval ratings from state polling data, along with controls for other state characteristics. The results show that approval does affect a governor's influence with the bureaucracy, and as such, serves as an additional connection between the government and the governed.

Public approval is an important tool for chief executives. It helps predict their re-election success and it may translate into greater legislative and administrative policy success. Does a governor's personality influence his or her public approval? We address this question by examining the effects of three gubernatorial motives—affiliation-intimacy, achievement, and power—on public approval. We hypothesize that governors who are especially motivated by affiliation-intimacy will be more successful with the public. However, we find that governors motivated by a desire for power have greater public approval, while the affiliation-intimacy motive is unrelated to approval. Furthermore, the achievement motive is negatively related to approval in our data. We contrast these results with our earlier findings that a combination of power and achievement motives leads to gubernatorial success in the legislative arena. It appears that personality is important in determining gubernatorial success with both the public and the legislature, but in decidedly different ways.

Research on the public approval of American governors has focused almost exclusively on the impact of economic conditions on fluctuations in such approval. This article adds events variables to a model of gubernatorial public approval including the more commonly used economic variables, and tests this model in a time-series analysis in three states. The results suggest that the effect of political events is minimal and mixed. Furthermore, the analysis does not clearly support any general theory of gubernatorial approval. Instead, the factors that influence public support for governors seem to vary across time and state.

Using survey data in the states from 1981 to 2000, we explore the nature of public sentiment toward members of the U.S. Senate, compare aggregate senator approval to congressional approval, and examine the impact of several factors that may influence approval of both senators and their legislative institution. We hypothesize that presidential approval, partisanship, consumer expectations, inter-branch discord, national scandals, and rally-around-the-flag events will influence both senator and congressional approval. We find evidence that supports the conventional argument that constituents “love” their senators but “hate” Congress. Senators appear to be relatively insulated from factors that sway presidential and congressional approval.