EXPLAINING PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL - THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ISSUE SALIENCE

Theory: For an issue to have a significant influence on evaluations of the president, it must be salient to people and people must evaluate the president in terms of his performance regarding it. Hypotheses: Is sues vary in salience to the public over time; evaluations of the pres ident's performance on issues vary in their impact on presidential app roval over time; and evaluations of the president's performance on iss ues have more impact on presidential approval when the issues are sali ent to the public. Methods: Content analysis of media coverage of issu es; cross-sectional multichotomous logit-regression analysis of 25 nat ional public opinion polls; and time-series regression analysis of the relationship between issue salience and their impact on presidential approval. Results: Issues vary over time in their salience to the publ ic and in their impact on presidential approval; and the salience of i ssues to the public directly affects their impact on the public's eval uation of the president.