The Myth That Foreign Policy Doesn’t Matter in Presidential Elections

In the run-up to the 1992 U.S. presidential election between Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, Clinton campaign strategist James Carville famously coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The quip has been an article of faith for political commentators ever since. Presidential elections, according to this logic, are decided by bread-and-butter issues: domestic politics, not foreign policy, is what matters. Recent polling would appear to bear out Carville’s insight: according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, nearly 60 percent of voters say that the economy and inflation will greatly shape their choice in November, whereas fewer than 20 percent say the same about the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

Yet history shows that foreign policy is far from irrelevant to presidential campaigns. Even if voters attach limited significance to individual foreign policy issues, they want to make sure that candidates are fit to serve as the country’s commander in chief. In particular, Americans believe that it is crucial to have a strong leader who will stand firm when challenged by adversaries. Presidential candidates leverage their reputations as strong leaders to win votes without needing to draw clear contrasts with their opponents on specific foreign policy issues. Others construct reputations for toughness on the campaign trail by taking hawkish positions on international affairs. For both kinds of candidates, demonstrating the ability to lead the free world plays an important role in appealing to voters. As a result, foreign policy matters more at the ballot box than the conventional wisdom dictates.

Electoral considerations can also influence the ways incumbents conduct foreign policy. In late September, as Israel openly defied U.S. calls for a cease-fire and dramatically escalated its military operations against Hezbollah, the Biden administration broadly went along, with officials doubtless aware that any significant U.S. pushback might expose Kamala Harris and the Democrats to charges of insufficient support for Israel during a close election. The party is experiencing what Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter found out the hard way: foreign policy is an area fraught with political risk, where unresolved conflicts and unexpected crises can do major harm to campaigns. Incumbent presidents frequently adapt the timing and nature of critical military decisions, dialing up or down the level of U.S. commitment to foreign wars to account for the pressures of the political calendar. Pollsters and commentators have downplayed these dynamics, but candidates clearly understand them, and they are central to understanding the 2024 campaign.

TALK A BIG GAME

When asked by pollsters to identify the most important problems facing the country, Americans rarely point to specific foreign policy issues. This recurring finding appears to support the idea that foreign policy does not matter much in presidential politics. But candidates’ positions on international issues are not voters’ main consideration when evaluating which party’s nominee would be the more effective commander in chief. During the 2020 presidential campaign, for example, when voters were asked to explain why they thought either Joe Biden or Donald Trump would do a better job handling foreign policy, they were more than twice as likely to cite the candidates’ personal attributes—toughness, decisiveness, and mental acuity, among others—than to describe their policy positions.

Take the 1952 election, which took place at the height of the Korean War. Days before voters went to the polls, Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower promised that he would “go to Korea” if elected. Eisenhower did not explain what he would do in Korea, but he didn’t have to. Having led U.S. forces to victory in World War II and then served as NATO’s top general, Eisenhower’s military record gave him unsurpassed credibility on national security issues. Voters trusted Eisenhower to handle the Korean War better than his Democratic rival, Adlai Stevenson, even if it was not obvious how these candidates would handle the conflict differently.

Richard Nixon ran a similar playbook during his own presidential campaign in 1968, which took place amid a darkening war in Vietnam. Nixon implied that he had a secret plan for achieving “peace with honor” in Vietnam. Voters clearly did not know what this plan was—in fact, they perceived Nixon’s Vietnam policies to be little different from those of his opponent, Hubert Humphrey. Polls nevertheless showed that voters thought Nixon was a stronger leader who would do a better job of managing the war.

Presidential candidates generally know the power of image-making and use their foreign policy agendas to showcase leadership strength. During his 1960 presidential campaign, for example, John F. Kennedy proposed a major U.S. military buildup to close an alleged “missile gap” with the Soviet Union. Polls at the time showed that just one-quarter of Americans thought that their country needed a larger defense budget. But Kennedy’s advisers assured him that “particular postures on issues will not direct many votes.” Pledging to raise military spending allowed Kennedy to argue that he would inject new vigor into U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, Kennedy’s famous promise to “pay any price, bear any burden” to advance U.S. world leadership continues to resonate with Americans today.

History shows that foreign policy is far from irrelevant to presidential campaigns.

At times of heightened threats, voters place a higher premium on electing strong leaders. This tendency is important for understanding the 2024 presidential campaign, which takes place amid major ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and elsewhere also presents the United States with great-power competition not seen since the Cold War. That the vice-presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz opened with a question about Iran demonstrates just how much the current global turmoil has entered American political discourse.

Yet even at times when foreign policy issues are not particularly salient in American politics, presidential candidates still need to show that they can provide strong leadership on the international stage. Take Clinton’s campaign in 1992—the race that was supposedly all about “the economy, stupid.” According to Clinton’s national security adviser, Anthony Lake, campaign staff believed it was important to find a foreign policy issue that would “get a jab in [Bush’s] face” to blunt Bush’s reputation for competence in handling global affairs. Thus, Clinton promised to escalate U.S. involvement in Bosnia’s civil war in a manner that would demonstrate “real leadership,” in contrast to Bush’s more hands-off approach. Clinton aide Nancy Soderberg later explained that “what you need to do . . . is demonstrate that you can go to the mat with the incumbent on foreign policy and you’re not afraid to challenge his views.”

Such vote-winning strategies have more than rhetorical significance. Once in office, presidents face pressure to implement their campaign pledges, if only to avoid accusations of flip-flopping or not keeping their word. Kennedy followed through on his promise to implement a costly defense buildup. Nixon’s rhetoric about bringing “peace with honor” to Vietnam set expectations he could not fulfill in peace negotiations and contributed to his delaying signing the Paris Peace Accords until after securing reelection in 1972. Clinton, too, ultimately followed through on his promise to intervene in Bosnia’s civil war.

FORCING HANDS

Elections also can encourage incumbent presidents to change the ways they conduct foreign policy. Presidents who are up for reelection or who are eager to support their party’s candidate may adjust policy accordingly, regardless of whether they believe changes in approach serve the national interest.

Public pressure sometimes makes presidents more willing to use force. In March 1972, for example, Nixon authorized a major bombing and mining operation to counter North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive, despite having “grave doubts” about the utility of airpower: he understood that an aggressive response would bolster his image in an election year. As he told his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, “The most important thing is when they are kicking us we have got to be kicking them or we look bad.” Indeed, even as a plurality of Americans supported an agreement to end the war, 59 percent supported mining North Vietnam. Behind closed doors, Nixon admitted, “If we could survive past the election, Henry, and then Vietnam goes down the tubes, it really doesn’t make any difference.”

On the other hand, election year anxiety can also prompt incumbents to be more sensitive to the political risks of keeping troops in harm’s way. Take Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq in late 2011. Senior administration officials have acknowledged that, along with the Iraqi parliament’s resistance to signing a new status of forces agreement, public pressure on the president to fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to end the war played into his decision to implement a full withdrawal. As the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, put it, “You go back to his campaign promise, and it was going to be zero. It’s just this question of how we were going to get there.”

An upcoming election can make the task of resolving international crises both more urgent and more difficult.

Often, presidents worry that using force in an election year carries excessive political risk. As the 1964 election approached, Johnson pushed back when advisers recommended escalating U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, telling his national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, “I’ve got to win an election, and then you can make a decision.” Once reelected, Johnson felt no such restraint, quickly authorizing a sustained bombing campaign in February 1965 at a pace that surprised even the administration’s more hawkish voices.

When not running for reelection, an imminent election can still undermine presidents’ leverage in ongoing diplomacy. Biden’s inability to broker a cease-fire agreement in Gaza or Lebanon echoes the challenges Johnson faced in trying to end the Vietnam War in 1968. At first, Hanoi showed little interest in offering concessions, hoping to receive better terms if Humphrey won the election. It softened as Nixon gained in the polls. But the prospect of a hard-liner in the White House meant that the South Vietnamese now held out for better terms—a position Nixon encouraged in order to “monkey wrench” negotiations that might benefit Democrats electorally. Hanoi’s and Saigon’s opposing interests in the outcome of the election guaranteed that peace would remain elusive.

An upcoming election can also make the task of resolving international crises both more urgent and more difficult. In 1980, for example, Carter understood that the safe return of U.S. hostages seized in Tehran by Iranian students was critical to a successful reelection bid. By authorizing a rescue mission that spring, he was responding to public frustration about the legal and diplomatic strategies he had pursued up to that point. Yet the rescue mission’s failure only strengthened public perceptions of the president’s weakness on foreign policy and contributed to Carter’s loss. The hostages were eventually released—on the day his successor, Ronald Reagan, was inaugurated.

BREAK POINTS

In 2024, Americans will again cast their votes in part based on their assessment of the candidates’ strength as leaders. Donald Trump’s proposal to levy double-digit tariffs on all imports seems, on its face, out of touch with voters’ attitudes. Though Americans have soured on many aspects of globalization in recent years, polls consistently show broad support for free trade and opposition to higher tariffs. But Trump’s “America first” trade policies also underscore his reputation as a hard-nosed dealmaker who fights back against countries, such as China, that employ unfair trade practices. When Harris talks about trade, her task is thus not just to explain to voters why Trump’s tariffs would raise prices on U.S. consumers but also to show that she can stick up for American workers with the same intensity as Trump.

Trump’s approach to the war in Ukraine shows that he has internalized the primacy of appearing tough on foreign policy. He has dodged questions about how he would handle the conflict as president, even repeatedly refusing to say whether he wants Kyiv to win the war. Instead, he claims that Russia would never have dared to invade Ukraine in the first place if he had still been president in 2022. The notion that Trump would bring “peace through strength” is arguably his campaign’s central national security message, and it follows in a long tradition of presidential office seekers who have employed similar rhetoric. As much as Trump comes across as a maverick, unbridled by norms, his approach to foreign policy follows a well-trodden path in presidential politics.

Harris’s principal foreign policy challenge as a candidate is to demonstrate that she can offer the kind of muscular leadership that Americans demand from their commander in chief. A recent survey of battleground states conducted by the Institute for Global Affairs shows that Trump holds an eight-point lead on the question of which candidate would be a stronger leader in international affairs. So far, Harris has largely addressed this deficit with hawkishness—for example, asserting that Americans must retain “the most lethal fighting force in the world,” arguing that Trump seeks to “cozy up to tyrants” such as Russian President Vladimir Putin or North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and insisting that Trump is “weak and wrong on national security.” But if Harris wants to convince voters, she may need to provide more detail on how she will inject new life into U.S. foreign policy.

In 2024, Americans will again cast their votes based on their assessment of the candidates’ strength as leaders.

The issue on which Harris has drawn the clearest contrast with the Biden administration is her more outspoken criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza. This approach may help win votes in swing states such as Michigan, which has significant populations of progressives and Arab Americans. On a national scale, however, tacking left on Gaza could expose Harris to the charge that she is failing to support Israel or appeasing Hamas. Harris would thus do well to find additional areas in which to draw foreign policy contrasts to Biden, particularly on issues that showcase how she would stand up to America’s adversaries. The most plausible move would involve explaining how she would bolster U.S. support for Ukraine. Explaining how a new Democratic administration would do more to contain China could also fit the bill.

As the campaign enters its final stretch, the political bind Harris faces on the Middle East is likely to worsen. The escalation of conflict between Israel, Iran, and its proxies into a wider regional war is unlikely to be popular with voters. Yet as a lame duck with limited time left in office, Biden lacks the leverage required to bring hostilities to a close. With Trump having criticized Biden’s calls for Israel to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza and pledged to let Israel “finish the job,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces few incentives to bow to pressure to exercise restraint. As he expands the war to a new front in Lebanon and publicly contemplates direct attacks on Iran, Netanyahu appears set to run out the clock on the outgoing administration. Harris’s struggles to bridge conflicting views in her own party leave Trump free to blame her for allowing regional tensions to boil over on her watch, without articulating a clear vision of how he would handle things differently.

Ultimately, concerns about domestic issues such as inflation and immigration will almost certainly remain at the top of voters’ minds in November. Yet in an election that will likely be decided by a small number of ballots cast in a few crucial swing states, Democrats and Republicans will need to scrape and claw for every vote they can get. Conventional wisdom that elections are just about “the economy, stupid” ignores the way that foreign policy can shape presidential elections, the influence that elections can therefore exert on international affairs, and the ways in which those dynamics have already shaped the 2024 campaign.