The Influence of Daily Conferences Rhetoric on Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Presidential Approval: An Empirical Presidential Priming Approach

The approval ratings of a president influence the legitimacy of their government, their ability to promote public policies, and yield electoral dividends for their party.
This work empirically examines the influence of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s
rhetoric on his presidential approval ratings through the analysis of his morning
daily press conferences. Text mining techniques were employed to analyze 1,385
conferences, complemented by data on economic, security, and media variables.
The relationship between these variables and presidential approval ratings was
evaluated using a dynamic linear regression model for time series.
The study’s main finding is that the prevalence of the corruption theme in
morning press conferences has a statistically significant negative effect on presidential approval ratings, especially when considered alongside other topics such as the economy, health, and security. This discovery suggests that presidents can influence their own approval through their rhetoric, modulating their discourse by including or excluding certain topics. This pioneering study opens the door to analyzing presidential approval using text mining in México.