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Thanks for the paper, and for answering questions. There are a couple of hypotheses I wonder about: 1) Politicians don't care about constituent's current opini

Thanks for the paper, and for answering questions. There are a couple of hypotheses I wonder about: 1) Politicians don't care about constituent's current opinions, but about their future response to actions the politican might undertake. For example, recent articles indicate widespread support in the U.S. for gun control, but a politician might anticipate: If I support a gun control measure then the NRA will run ads in my district; that will change many opinions [1], spread other negative stories about me, and galvanize my opponents both in public discussion and when getting voters to the polls. 2) The large differences between different subgroups explain the difference: All constituents, all voters, primary voters, and the few who vote in state legislative elections. (I challenge HN readers to name your state representatives without looking them up.) If these issues are covered in the paper, I apologize; I read what I could now and searched the paper for related terms, but won't have time to finish reading until much later. ---- [1] I don't know that ads have this effect. My impression is that most people's opinions are weakly held and that they follow the herd on most issues (whichever herd they feel they belong to).

dbroockman 11y ago
Here are some guesses. On (1), the mental model I have is more like an understanding of who the super-intense supporters are. 90% of people might say they support background checks for gun purchases, but it's the 10% who support it who are voting on the basis of that issue, in part due to organizations like the NRA. I think our findings are consistent with that, in the sense that politicians seem to believe they don't need to learn what public opinion is in order to get re-elected; they can focus on other forms of information-gathering. On (2), I suspect there is something there, but it's hard to make sense of Democrats from that angle, as Democratic primary voters, for example, are more liberal than the average person, yet Democratic politicians don't seem to see their districts as more liberal than they are. My guess is the key group is something more like "the people who choose to write in and go to meetings."
- hackuser 11y ago
  I wonder if any state legislature has ever received the votes of more than a tiny minority. Thanks for your insights, and for taking the time to answer!

dbroockman 11y ago

Here are some guesses. On (1), the mental model I have is more like an understanding of who the super-intense supporters are. 90% of people might say they support background checks for gun purchases, but it's the 10% who support it who are voting on the basis of that issue, in part due to organizations like the NRA. I think our findings are consistent with that, in the sense that politicians seem to believe they don't need to learn what public opinion is in order to get re-elected; they can focus on other forms of information-gathering. On (2), I suspect there is something there, but it's hard to make sense of Democrats from that angle, as Democratic primary voters, for example, are more liberal than the average person, yet Democratic politicians don't seem to see their districts as more liberal than they are. My guess is the key group is something more like "the people who choose to write in and go to meetings."

hackuser 11y ago
I wonder if any state legislature has ever received the votes of more than a tiny minority. Thanks for your insights, and for taking the time to answer!