"Swing" and a Miss?: The Surprising Effects of Andrew Johnson's Campaigning

• In Event: Politics and History & MENA Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: Politics and History Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

In the 1866 midterm elections, Andrew Johnson broke from convention and sought to use his position as President to oust Radical Republicans in Congress who clashed with him over Reconstruction policy. Johnson orchestrated a campaign sweeping across 11 Northern states by railroad, giving speeches in major cities and towns along the way. Contemporaries and historians since have described Johnson’s “Swing Around the Circle” as a disaster: Johnson sparred with hecklers, compared himself to Jesus, and attracted increasingly hostile crowds. Republicans won overwhelmingly and used their supermajority to shape Reconstruction policy and impeach Johnson. Yet, there has been no attempt to assess the effects of his campaign stops. In this first instance of a sitting President aggressively campaigning against Congressional rivals during the midterm election, did Johnson’s efforts increase support for Democrats, backfire and aid his opponents, or do very little, as evidence from modern campaign effects suggests? This paper identifies the causal effects of Johnson’s campaign on Democratic and Republican vote-share using a difference-in-difference design. Johnson’s campaign in fact caused moderate, but sustained, reductions in support for Republicans: counties in which Johnson spoke saw mean Republican vote-share decrease between 1 and 2 percentage points in nearly every election between 1866 and 1874. In additional tests, we examine whether the mechanisms for these campaign effects were through persuasion, mobilization, or coordination.

Authors

• Michael Weaver, The University of British Columbia

• Sarah Lachance, University of British Columbia