There’s been a lot of discussion recently about Sarah Palin’s broad-based job approval as governor of Alaska as an indicator of her political skills and a rationale for her selection as vice presidential nominee.  Yes, Sarah Palin is very popular, but it’s not so exceptional for the governor of a small state to be popular.  The most popular governors in America are from small states.

Indeed, at the time of her selection Palin was the fifth most popular governor in America, behind the governors of Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas, and North Dakota–all states with small populations.  It appears that it’s easier to be a popular governor when your state has fewer people.  The governors of South Dakota and Montana are also remarkably popular, while on the other side, the leaders of fourteen of the fifteen largest states have job approval ratings less than 50%.

Graphs based on state-by-state polls tell the story, plotting governors’ approval ratings in 2006 and 2008 along with state population.  Alaska is on the left side of both graphs, with scandal-plagued Frank Murkowski with the sub-25% approval in 2006 (edged out only by Ohio’s Bob Taft) and Sarah Palin with the high rating in 2008.  In both years, though, the overall pattern is that the most popular governors came from less populated states.

In larger states, the most popular governors are David Patterson of New York and Charlie Crist of Florida, near the 50% point.  Governors Ted Strickland of Ohio, Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, and Rick Perry of Texas are near 40%, in the middle of the pack of large-state governors, far above Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, Rod Blagojevich in Illinois, and Jon Corzine in New Jersey.

Why are the most popular governors in small states?  Residents of a small state might be more likely to have positive feelings toward someone who represents that state to outsiders.  In contrast, Ed Rendell has to be governor of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, their suburbs, and lots of other cities and towns around the state–and it isn’t easy to satisfy the residents of all these places at once.

Beyond this, in a large state, there will be more ambitious politicians on the other side, eager to knock off the incumbent governor; small states often have part-time legislatures and thus the governor is involved in less political conflict; and small states (such as Alaska) tend to get more funds per capita from the federal government, and it’s easier to be popular when the money runs more freely.

When matched against some of the astronomical popularities of governors of small states, Ted Strickland, Ed Rendell, and other governors of large states don’t look so good.

The irony is that running a large state is arguably a good preparation for being the nation’s chief executive, but such a job requires tough choices that make universal popularity an impossibility.

 

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Andrew Gelman is a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University and author of the recently released book, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State:  Why Americans Vote the Way They Do. He also pens the popular blog Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.

He created the graphs used in this article earlier this year and posted about them here. He sat down with Princeton University Press earlier this month for an interview.