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[Joe]

Research 1: Conservative Bias in Perceptions of Public Opinion Among American Political Elites

Abstract:

The conservative asymmetry of elite polarization and the right-skewed ”democratic deficit"—wherein policy is more conservative than majorities prefer on average—represent significant puzzles. We argue that such breakdowns in aggregate representation can arise because politicians systematically misperceive constituency opinion. We demonstrate this argument in US states, where conservative citizens are more active in the public spheres politicians monitor, which we hypothesized might distort politicians' perceptions of public opinion. With original surveys of 3,765 politicians' perceptions of constituency opinion on nine issues, we find politicians of both parties dramatically overestimate their constituents' support for conservative policies. This pattern is robust across methods, years, issues, districts, and states. We also show Republicans overestimate constituency conservatism especially and that this partisan difference may arise from differences in politicians' information environments. Our findings suggest a novel way democratic representation may fail: politicians can systematically misperceive what their constituents want.

Data:

This original survey evidence spans two years and 3,765 surveys of American politicians, across which we collected 11,803 elite perceptions of constituency opinion in total. Our main evidence comes from a survey we conducted in 2014 of 1,858 state politicians.

Excerpts:

The conservative biases we uncovered in politicians' perceptions of public opinion are robust across statistical methods, weighting approaches, states, districts, years, issues, and reference populations.

Over the last few decades, actors on the political right have built the capacity to ”rapidly mobilize large numbers" of conservative citizens to participate in the public spheres representatives monitor by organizing intense conservative issue publics, coordinating with talk radio programs, and more. As a result, while voter turnout for conservatives and liberals differs only slightly,4 conservatives are significantly more likely to participate in the public sphere in other ways, such as by contacting their legislators or attending town hall meetings.

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Research 2: Having Their Cake and Eating It, Too: (Why) Local Party Leaders Prefer Nominating Extreme Candidates (.pdf)

Abstract:

Recent accounts hypothesize increasing political party leaders' influence in primaries would decrease polarization, expecting party leaders to support nominating centrists in hopes of winning general elections. We theorized that local party leaders – especially Republicans – might not perceive large electoral incentives to nominate centrists. We evaluated this theory with an original survey of 1,118 local party leaders. In experiments, we find Republican leaders prefer nominating extremists over centrists overwhelmingly (by 10 to 1) and Democrats prefer nominating extremists mildly. Republicans also spontaneously mention conservatism as desirable in nominees six times more often than centrism. This asymmetry appears to arise because Republicans alone believe they ‘can have their cake and eat it, too,' expecting extremists to be more loyal and more likely to win general elections. Additional data suggests this may be because Republicans overestimate the electorate's conservatism. These findings suggest reformers may want to avoid empowering local party leaders.

Data:

To administer the survey, we first manually compiled contact information for 6,219 county party chairs. We received responses from 1,118 (18%).

Excerpts:

Democratic party chairs preferred extremists 63% of the time, but Republicans preferred extremists 91% of the time, or by about 10 to 1. Regardless of the other traits each candidate had, Republican party chairs preferred the extremists almost every time.

Our findings are consistent with exactly that expectation: most Republican county party leaders see extremists as more electable than centrists, while their Democratic counterparts appear to see centrists as only slightly more electable. In this way, Republican party leaders act as if nominating extremists allows them to ‘have their cake and eat it, too' – winning more votes in general elections while only offering voters the opportunity to select extreme party loyalists.

 

[QuantumZebra]

Democratic party chairs preferred extremists 63% of the time, but Republicans preferred extremists 91% of the time, or by about 10 to 1. Regardless of the other traits each candidate had, Republican party chairs preferred the extremists almost every time.

Not surprised whatsoever.

(Conservative ideologies tend towards fear of change, and fear in turn leads to extreme positions and styles of thinking)

 

[Geist-]

Not surprised at all. But people vote for the party rather than the issues, and the GOP has a much better propaganda machine.

 

[KodaRuss]

Not surprised by this at all. Frustrating beyond belief

 

[kirblar]

The Senate and EC (as well as the House to a lesser degree) dramatically warp perception of norms because those institutions inherently over-represent rural (white) Americans.