Presidential popularity and approval are always boosted during crisis situations, particularly when the crisis is abroad. The outbreak of hostilities with a foreign power, or the threat of an invasion or attack on U.S. interests, will invariably generate a public groundswell of support for the president. Because the president is viewed as the embodiment of the nation as a whole, the public’s support of the president in a time of crisis is a means of expressing patriotism and national solidarity.
President William McKinley’s popularity was boosted by the outbreak of hostilities with Spain at the onset of the Spanish-American War. Similarly, the Gulf of Tonkin crisis worked to President Johnson’s advantage during the Vietnam War (although Johnson soon found, as had many presidents before him, that rallies do not last indefinitely). President Kennedy’s approval ratings surged during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and President Carter experienced a rally in public support during his attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran (while the rescue attempt failed, it was the prolonged nature of the crisis itself that ultimately damaged Carter’s standing in the polls).
Presidents are also advantaged by being in the White House during wartime. Even when wars are unpopular, the public has generally been reluctant to change leaders in the midst of a conflict. President Franklin Roosevelt would not have been reelected to a third term without the specter of imminent war (and it is unlikely that he would have attempted a third campaign absent the sense of impending conflict). Similarly, President George H. W. Bush saw his lackluster approval ratings skyrocket during Operation Desert Storm in the first Gulf War. Little more than a decade later, President George W. Bush too received a great boost in his approval ratings when the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, and again when he directed U.S. troops to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. In the Campaign of 2004, Bush was able to convince voters to keep him in office despite the increasing unpopularity of the two wars he was conducting overseas. President Obama received a positive bump in the polls upon release of the news of the violent death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of American Navy Seals in May 2011, but by the end of June, his showing in the polls returned to the same level of approval as just prior to the incident.
Rallies, while important to a president’s ongoing image before the American public, eventually fade away. As a crisis becomes prolonged, critics of the president’s actions begin to emerge, and the public’s patriotic devotion to the cause begins to dissipate. Political scientists believe that the White House’s ability to control information during a crisis is one of the key factors that initially keep critics at bay. The longer a president is able to monopolize information about the crisis, the longer the rally may last.
Some crises are inherently short-lived. Failed assassination attempts on a president may bring with them a surge of support, but they do not usually involve a sustained sense of crisis, and so generally they will not produce a lengthy rally. Similarly, while President Obama’s successful elimination of the architect of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, earned him accolades in the short run, it did little to stem the criticism of his presidency over the long run.
Additionally, vice presidents who ascend to the White House after the death of a president generally receive a “rally around the flag” bump in their popularity. Most recently, the deaths of President Franklin Roosevelt and President John Kennedy effectively rallied the public behind their successors, President Harry Truman and President Lyndon Johnson, respectively. Whether or not this rally carries over into the presidential election depends, in part, on timing. Johnson was elected to a full term in less than a year after the death of President Kennedy, benefiting from the public’s sympathies for his slain running mate. When Harry Truman ran for a full term in office, a considerable amount of time had passed since the death of his predecessor, and the power of his connection to FDR had faded. Truman found himself in a fight for his political life that he would eventually win (barely), although his victory owed little to his affiliation with Roosevelt, or even to his handling of the culmination of World War II or the outbreak of the Korean War.
Some political analysts regard the “rally around the flag” effect as potentially dangerous, fearing that it could prompt some presidents to irresponsibly provoke crises abroad to divert voters from problems at home. Such actions might endanger the lives of both U.S. forces and innocent civilians on the ground. In such a wag-the-dog scenario, this type of political windfall could even be generated intentionally. While there is no real and direct evidence of such a situation ever happening in presidential elections, the possibility of a president using a crisis situation for personal gain—and even permitting such a situation to arise in the first place, for the sole purpose of strengthening a reelection campaign—cannot be overlooked.
Brody, Richard A. Assessing the President. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Kernell, Samuel. Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006.
Lowi, Theodore J. The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.