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Title: Public Opinion in the U.S. States: 1956 to 2009

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2012

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Abstract: In this paper we create, validate, and apply new dynamic measures of state partisanship and state policy mood from 1956 to the present. Our approach utilizes the advantages of two leading techniques for measuring state public opinionmultilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) and survey aggregation. We also rely on multiple question items in our estimates of state opinion in order to reduce measurement error. The resulting estimates are based on 910 survey questions asked in 317 surveys with a total of more than 530,000 respondents. After validating our measures, we show how dynamic measures of state opinion can reveal new substantive findings about U.S. politics. We find that state opinion is an important predictor of gubernatorial election outcomes and, specifically, that policy mood becamerelevant for gubernatorial elections beginning in the late-1970s, a shift that is consistent with the convergence of racial and economic issues in U.S. politics.

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Authors: Enns, Peter K.; Koch, Julianna

Conference Name: Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association

Publisher Location: Chicago, IL

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Other

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