Conventional wisdom states that peace and prosperity are the principal policy goals for every government. Past studies have been successful in explaining the variances in presidential election results by using real change in economic conditions as the explanatory variable. The main purpose of this article, therefore, is to add two new variables, international events and wars, to the research on economic voting. It will be shown that international political events, war, and economic conditions explain well the variations in electoral outcomes from 1920 to 1996, and that they yield good predictions of electoral results. It is concluded that American voters in aggregate favor a government that provides peace as well as prosperity.