Presidential Ideal Points in the Age of Trump: A Suggestion for Future Research

One of the more powerful tools in understanding American political institutions is the ideal point estimate — a statistical summary of how a political actor behaves across a set of policy choices. In earlier research, I developed methods to estimate the ideal points of U.S. presidents based on their observable behaviors: whom they nominate, which treaties they submit, how they sign or veto legislation, and when they issue public statements urging members of Congress to vote a certain way on roll call votes.

In my dissertation, I applied this method to presidents through Barack Obama’s first term. The details are summarized in two articles based on my dissertation research (Edwards 2017; Edwards 2014). You can see my presidency data on this web site. The results provided a dynamic and intuitive way to visualize the policy relationship between the executive and Congress. By placing presidents on the same spatial map as legislators, we can evaluate claims about bipartisanship, gridlock, and executive strategy in a rigorous, quantitative way.

I’d love to see this work updated to include more recent administrations — especially Donald Trump’s presidency. The Trump years are often framed as an institutional rupture or as a shift toward more personalistic, populist leadership. But how different was Trump’s presidency in terms of actual policy substance?

This is a question ideal point estimation can help answer. If Trump’s ideal point — estimated from his legislative interventions, vetoes, and public signals — differs substantially from past Republican presidents, we might conclude that “MAGA” politics represents a distinct ideological movement. If not, the difference may be more about style and rhetoric than policy. There is a lot of qualitative work about the Trump’s politics, along with some quantitative analysis, but I haven’t seen a good mapping of Trump’s ideal point that would help address several questions:

• Did Trump’s policy preferences diverge from the congressional GOP, or did they remain aligned?
• How did Trump’s policy “location” shift over time, particularly as his relationship with Congress evolved?
• Can we detect a break — or a continuation — in the ideological trajectory of the Republican Party?

I don’t have time to develop this fully right now, but I think it’s a strong project for anyone interested in presidential behavior, legislative politics, or the quantitative modeling of institutions. If you’re looking for a research question with real relevance to understanding today’s political dynamics — and you have the skills to estimate ideal points — this could be a rewarding project!