Party competence and the macro polity

This paper reveals a national mood in aggregate evaluations of party competence which translates from government party to opposition, which has meaningful consequences for party ratings for competence, and which significantly shapes congressional voting intentions. Analysis of this ‘macro-competence’ measure, which is constructed using a dataset of 2,512 poll measures of issue handling for parties over six decades, and then based on closer quarterly analyses between 1980 and 2009, reveals that voters judge party competence on the basis of mood in evaluations of policy handling as well as on the basis of a president, the state of the economy and on partisan leanings. The paper offers an aggregate level theory of public opinion about government and party competence, about the way in which parties gain and lose reputations for competence – irrespective of presidential approval – and introduces a measure of policy competence which can contribute in new ways to our aggregate level explanations of congressional party support, and of the Macro Polity in genera