AbstractPresidential approval in the United States has been the most consistently watched variable in American politics for decades. Not surprisingly, political scientists have also followed the measure closely and developed a long and deep literature about both its causes and effects. This chapter reviews the historical development of those literatures and examine approval over the 19532020 period. The economy and approval were once inextricably related, and that connection was a linchpin of the literature on economic voting. But, with increased partisan polarization, presidential approval seems to have been detached from economic measures and, perhaps, from everything except partisanship.
