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The 20 Most Popular Elected Officials in America
Originally appeared in Campaigns & Elections, April 1994
As a group, politicians are one of the most maligned species on the face of the earth. Occasionally, it's for good reason. But many individuals who fit the category are pretty good folks, thank you. Quite a few are popular public servants who are loved by their constituencies and respected by their peers.
To find the most popular politicians in America, the editors of Campaigns & Elections pored over old returns, recent opinion polls, and survey responses from a wide assortment of knowledgeable political consultants, party leaders, and journalists. These helped us cull out a manageable number of possibilities from the more than 300,000 elected officials nationwide. We then had to pick from an abundant collection of local, state, and federal elected officials who have demonstrated exceptional vote-getting ability and considerable public appeal in recent years.
Mayor Bret Schundler, (R. Jersey City), Elected with only 16 percent of the vote in a fluke special election in 1992. Schundler immediately began turning around a city
known as a hulking graveyard. Six months later he crushed the candidate of a united Democratic Party by 38 points to win a full term. By attracting investment capital and making private enterprise work for city functions, Schundler swept out three generations of instituted corruption with a rainbow coalition of allies.
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