Why talking won’t help presidents win bipartisan support

Do presidents unite or divide Congress? In new research which analyses more than 6,000 roll call votes over nearly 40 years, Travis J. Baker finds that members of the opposition party are about 6 percent less likely to support a president’s priorities than members of the president’s party. This occurs even when legislators have the same voting record, and the differences get wider as presidents speak for longer on the issue. He argues that this effect is mainly driven by divided government, since at those times Congress is more likely to vote for bills which are opposed to the president’s agenda.