The Myth of the Conservative Voter

The obvious fact that majority public opinion is unable to prevail in Washington has set off a flurry of research on why the political system is so unresponsive. The latest contribution comes from David Broockman of the University of California, Berkeley, and Christopher Skovron of the University of Michigan. They sent surveys by mail and email to all of the 2012 candidates for state legislatures in the country. The response rate was 19.5% (1907 candidates), which is about double the typical response rate for mail and email surveys. The candidates were asked to estimate what percentage of their constituents would agree with the following statements:

1. Same sex couples should be allowed to marry.
2. Implement a universal healthcare program to guarantee coverage to all Americans, regardless of income.
3. Abolish all federal welfare programs.

They were also asked their own opinions on the first two issues. A new technique called multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) was used to estimate the attitudes of the citizens in each legislative district. It would obviously be very costly to survey the entire voting population each of the country's 6500 state legislative districts. MRP uses national survey data to determine level of agreement with the three statements based on education, race, gender, social class, religiosity and having voted for Obama. The percentage of people in each of these demographic subgroups in each legislative district is determined from the 2010 census. This generates an accurate estimate of the opinions of the people in each district. Although indirect, this method has been validated against real survey data.

There were positive correlations (rs = .43 to .51) across districts between the candidates' estimates and actual opinions, but they are not very impressive, accounting for only about 20% of the variance. The interesting thing about the data is that the candidates' perceived their constituents to be about 10% more conservative on these issues than they actually were, a difference roughly equal to the average difference between voters in California and Alabama. Stated differently, 60% of citizens would have to favor a liberal policy in order for their legislators to perceive them as a majority.

The responses were analyzed separately for liberal and conservative candidates based on their own answers to political questions. These data are shown in the table above. The horizontal axis represents the actual opinions in each district, and the vertical axis is the politicians' estimates. The black line is perfect accuracy. Anthing below it means the politicians are overestimating their constituents' conservatism. The blue line is the estimates of the liberal politicians, and the red line, the estimates of the conservatives. Although both groups believed their constituents were more conservative than they actually were, the conservatives seemed to be living in another world. They were off by over 20%. Nearly half the conservative candidates believed their district was more conservative than the actual opinions of the most conservative district in the entire country.

These findings may help us understand differences in the personal style of politicians. The well-known tendency of liberal politicians not to stand up for their beliefs contrasts sharply with the overconfidence of conservatives. Both may be explained by their fundamental misperceptions of public opinion.

Candidates were surveyed again after the election, but there was no evidence that they had learned anything. They were no more accurate than before, and their accuracy was unrelated to any of the activities they reported during the campaign, i.e., time spent talking with voters.

The first question about these data is their generalizability. The study should be replicated using federal and local as well as state candidates, and with a wider variety of issues. However, the differences are quite large, so I assume these findings are robust. How can they be explained? Broockman and Skovron do not speculate other than to suggest that political elites are not motivated to learn the attitudes of the people they represent.

Before giving them a political spin, we must be sure these errors are unique to politicians. It's possible that a random sample of the population might make errors of a similar magnitude and direction. If so, the data represent cultural influences to which we are all exposed. For example, the corporate media present an almost unrelentingly conservative view of the American public opinion, insisting that this is a “center-right” nation and referring to right-wing politicians as “moderates.” These data may reflect back what the media inaccurately tell us. The liberal-conservative difference may mean that the media outlets preferred by conservatives are even less accurate than those preferred by liberals.

Suppose the general public does not make errors that are comparable to these candidates—that is, these biases are unique to politicians. If these politicians are themselves more conservative than the general public, there might be a false consensus effect. False consensus refers to the tendency to assume that other people's opinions are more similar to our own than they actually are, to project our own beliefs onto others. There is reason to believe that political candidates are more conservative than the people they seek to represent, since so much money is required to run for office—either their own money or funds obtained from wealthy donors.

This shades into a second possibility, which we might call the “loudest voices” hypothesis. When considering this hypothesis, remember that money talks too. In fact, the Supremes have ruled that money is speech.

Suppose there are two types of political issues, economic and social. Economic issues are those issues that have major economic consequences, even they are sometimes debated using non-economic arguments. Therefore, they include not just taxation and public spending, but issues like climate change, health care, and foreign policy, including debates over war and peace. In the present study, health care and welfare are economic issues.

When the issue is economic, the loudest voices politicians are exposed to are those of campaign donors, whose views are well to the right of the general public. In fact, politicians may spend much of their time inside a bubble filled with rich contributors and corporate lobbyists. If you spend most of your time talking to these people, you are not likely to arrive at an accurate perception of what the general public thinks.

Social issues are those that have only minor economic consequences, such as abortion, gay rights and gun control. Although they are sometimes called “sideshow issues,” they are as important to some people as economic issues. For example, if you are pregnant, whether you have access to a safe, legal abortion is a matter of life and death. Social issues are represented in this study by gay marriage.

When the issue is social, political pressure comes primarily from grassroots organizations. Sadly, the loudest voices the politicians hear almost invariably come from the right. Conservatives are better organized, perhaps because they hold their attitudes with greater strength. Of course, what we call “grassroots” is sometimes actually astroturf. These groups receive financial and logistical help from the wealthy, since rich people know that they benefit when conservative candidates are elected.

Therefore, the loudest voices hypothesis suggests that, regardless of whether the issue is economic or social, the candidates hear mainly conservative voices. This is especially true of candidates who are themselves to the right of center. You can get a pretty distorted view of public opinion that way. Ask Mitt Romney.