I study a model where an incumbent’s policy agenda generates an information structure allowing voters to learn about her ability. Since policies favoring a single party are harder to pass, the partisanship of an agenda influences what success or failure of passage communicates about ability. The model delivers a nonmonotonic relationship between an incumbent’s ex-ante winning chances and her agenda’s partisanship. Incumbents likely to lose pursue partisan policies to save their winning chances. Those likely to win embrace partisan policies whose failure can be blamed on the legislature. Incumbents in the middle pursue bipartisan policies to secure reelection. I apply these insights to the partisanship of policy proposals in U.S. governors’ “State of the State” speeches. I show that a rising aggregate trend in gubernatorial partisanship masks significant partisan fluctuations at the governor level. I interpret these fluctuations as responses to electoral incentives, showing that a nonmonotonic relationship between partisanship and approval ratings among reelectable governors matches my model.