Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Playing it safe by playing it conservative

Posted in:

Illinois

* A state Senator sent along a link to a new study with this note (redacted to conceal the legislator’s identity)…

It’s about a study of state legislators from throughout the country and finds that as a group, we tend to think our constituents are more conservative than they really are.

I can relate. Calls and emails to my office ran overwhelmingly against same sex marriage, but an actual poll of the district found plenty of support for SSM, (50-39 in favor in [one] side of my nest and 49-37 in favor on [the other] side.)

* From the Washington Post’s WonkBlog…

Last year, a group of political scientists took a random sample of state legislators and asked them a slew of questions, most of which boiled down to: “What do your constituents think about policy?” Do they support gay marriage? Do they support Obamacare? Do they support action to combat global warming?

Friend-of-the-blog David Broockman and Christopher Skovron, graduate students at Berkeley and Michigan, respectively, have released a working paper based on that research and the findings are rather astonishing.

Broockman and Skovron find that legislators consistently believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are. This includes Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. But conservative legislators generally overestimate the conservatism of their constituents by 20 points. “This difference is so large that nearly half of conservative politicians appear to believe that they represent a district that is more conservative on these issues than is the most conservative district in the entire country,” Broockman and Skovron write. This finding held up across a range of issues. Here, for example, are their findings for health care and same-sex marriage:

The graph for same sex marriage…

Back to the WonkBlog…

Is it just that legislators don’t talk to their constituents? Nope. Broockman and Skovron tried and failed to find any relationship between the amount of time legislators spend in their districts, going to community events, and so forth, and the accuracy of their reads on their districts. And this bias afflicts not just their view of their constituents, but their positions generally. […]

The research here is young and, as a general rule, reading too much into a single working paper is foolhardy. It’d be good, for one thing, to perform district-level surveys to confirm these findings. But the data holds against a battery of robustness checks the authors threw at it. The finding on conservative legislators in particular is so large that it’s hard to imagine any subsequent research would completely overturn it. But if the findings hold, they suggest both that epistemic closure on the right is real and affects state-level policymaking, and that there is a systematic bias against liberal policies at the state level.

Politicians, in general, tend to play it safe, so overestimating the conservative intensity in their districts is definitely a way of doing that. This working paper could give us an explanation of that older than dirt tradition.

Go read the rest. Interesting stuff.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 8:45 am

Comments

It would be interesting if this could be compared to voter participation rates, but good information anyway.

I hope some of the hesitant Dems take note, they’re likely afraid of a non-existent threat with SSM.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:12 am
It does seem that many social conservatives are outspoken, many times to a fault, and they are often perceived as being “know-it-all’s”. No science behind my observation, just my opinion.

Comment by Endangered Moderate Species Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:18 am
Very interesting indeed! One caution: it isn’t clear whether the constituents were all adults living in the district, registered voters, or likely voters. That could partially explain the disconnect between politicians’ perceptions and their constituents’ opinions - politicians may seek to represent the opinions of likely voters, not of nonvoters.

Comment by Robert the Bruce Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:19 am
I’m not so sure overestimating the conservative intensity in their districts is a safe bet in these difficult times. The middle class is under a lot of stress, and are much more likely to vote against a politician that they perceive is more sympathetic to ideology than their plight.

Comment by PublicServant Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:22 am
I’m pretty sure that historical patterns of who is likely to vote are increasingly unreliable in predicting who is out there voting these days. Just ask Mitt Romney’s pollsters.

Comment by PublicServant Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:29 am
I wonder what correllation there is with the constituent base they are interviewing and the political reality of how partisan-gerrymandered district maps affect the actual political competitiveness.

In other words, it’s great to sample a general swath of constituents in a wide-range of districts, but does that actually firm up with how politics actually works these days? In Illinois, very few districts are competitive in general election contests. So, what we are seeing (mostly on the conservative Republican side) is more and more competitive primary election contests. I wonder how the smaller subset of those voters correllate to their representative’s beliefs?

There’s fulcrum in every district for competitiveness, but it might not involve but a small subset of that district’s voters. A very homogeneous subset, because that is the purpose - or perhaps the result of some other purpose - of the way the district was drawn.

This graph might be representative of something if districts were drawn geographically compact with no other knowledge, or if every district was drawn with a bell curve that would provide competitiveness in a high-turnout election. But, the reality is that they are not.

Comment by Madison County Watcher Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:37 am
===Just ask Mitt Romney’s pollsters.===

Who would ever ask those guys anything ever again? They deliberately cooked the books.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:41 am
Don’t want to read too much into this early work, but it rings true in the Illinois House. Who would know watching and listening to them that 70% of Illinoisans want stricter gun laws, 90% favor background checks at gun shows, and 70% of even concealed-carry supporters are in favor of exemptions for theaters, schools, malls, etc.

Comment by Ray del Camino Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 9:52 am
I have requested to original study so I can look at the methodology used to create the results. Like any study, read nothing into it unless you can look at the cross-tabs and back-end logic.

Comment by Cincinnatus Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 10:46 am
===Politicians, in general, tend to play it safe, so overestimating the conservative intensity in their districts is definitely a way of doing that.

Except if you overestimate the conservative intensity, it endangers you to the left. It makes sense to do so in some sense for conservative Republicans who have to worry about a base. However, a liberal overestimating a conservative bent to a liberal district or a moderate doing so as well puts themselves at risk from the left.

What you have here is an empirical refutation of the median voter theorem. Politicians aren’t running to the center, they are running slightly to the right of center if they are liberal and way to the right if they are conservative.

That doesn’t happen in a vacuum though. It wouldn’t be stable so the question it raises is what institutionally pushes politicians to the right in their perception of their districts?

If liberals ended up to the left slightly then the question would be why do both sides overestimate, but do so in different degrees. Here, everyone goes right. Why?

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 11:53 am
===I have requested to original study

It’s linked from the article.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 11:55 am
Using this model, one uses the Census data and random polling to determine constituent responses based on the nationwide demographic. Therefore, it is possible that responses of educated white couples with children in San Francisco would be representing those from Hinsdale. There is no actual correlative results from a legislator to his district unless the authors’ model is used. I am not saying it’s an invalid approach, just it is what it is.

Comment by Cincinnatus Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 12:31 pm
=== It’s about a study of state legislators from throughout the country ===

=== a random sample of state legislators ===

^sigh^

It is NOT a study about state legislators. It is a study about CANDIDATES to be state legislators.

They cleary explain this in the study.

The grad students lump the stances of losing candidates together with winning candidates and deem it “elite perception of public opinion”.

Giving losing Tea Party primary candidates the same weight in this study as Lou Lang or Michael Madigan seems deeply flawed if you are making claims about state legislators.

This helps explain the disconnect in why they find “conservative legislators generally overestimate the conservatism of their constituents by 20 points”.

No, kiddos, you did not discover that “conservative legislators overestimate the conservatism of their constituents”.

You discovered why the Tea Party got slaughtered in 2012.

Congratulations.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 12:43 pm
===Here, everyone goes right. Why?===

The loudest squeak gets all the oil. I think the more vocal constituents tend to be conservative. Christian conservatives are probably the best organized constituents and are more likely to receive calls to action on a regular basis. They also have the moral angle at play which makes them more likely to act and to speak with strong conviction.

Just my opinion though.

Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 12:45 pm
It gets even better!

They received replies from 1,907 “state legislative candidates”. They do not clarify whether these “randomly” slected candidates were predominantly selected from Texas or New York, Miami or San Francisco, etc. (any selection bias? intentional or accidental? we don’t know.)

Plus, “candidates who were running unopposed were slighly less responsive”.

Best of all, it turns out the three issues candidates were asked to agree / disagree with were:
- “Implement a universal health care program”
- “Same-sex couples should be allowed to marry”
- “Abolish all federal welfare programs”

So, all in all, a fairly even handed approach.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 12:56 pm
It is not just that conservative overestimate how conservative the electorate is. Liberals make the same mistake, just not as badly.

I expect there are two important psychological reasons why.

First, perception bias leads us to give greater weight to evidence received earlier than evidence received later, and we tend to hold tightly to beliefs once they are established.

These districts undoubtedly were much more conservative 30, 20 and on some issues five years ago, and our ability to perceive changing attitudes lags reality because we don’t want to let go of old pictures in our head.

For conservatives, this is compounded by the confirmation bias: we tend to place greater weight on evidence that confirms our own ideas, belief and hypotheses and ignore evidence that contradicts them.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 1:02 pm
The more I read of this paper, the more unusual Dylan Matthews’ article in the Washington Post becomes.

For example, the working paper never asserts that it is conservative legislators who are out of touch, but conservative “politicians” and candidates.

The entire premise of Mr. Matthews’ article is neither found in nor supported by this working paper. The “rather astonishing” results he claims are in the paper simply are not there.

Matthews makes a massive jump in logic by equating “candidates” with “legislators”.

Whether that was on purpose or accidental is impossible to tell.

I do, however, know this: a political journalist should be able to tell the difference between a “candidate” and a “legislator”.

Weird.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 1:16 pm
===Matthews makes a massive jump in logic by equating “candidates” with “legislators”.

====Whether that was on purpose or accidental is impossible to tell.

A bit much given about half won and are, in fact, state legislators.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 1:38 pm
=== A bit much given about half won and are, in fact, state legislators. ===

Primaries can, and often do, involve more than one candidate on each side.

Remember, these were legislative candidates, not strictly those who made it to the general election.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 2:12 pm
Plus, if most of those out-of-touch candidates lose, they are clearly not voting and passing legislation.

That completely defeats the premise of the article, titled: “One Study Explains Why It’s Tough to Pass Liberal Laws”

Again, lending equal weight to the opinion of Tea Party primary candidates and Lou Lang or Michael Madigan is sorely misguided as a basis for this conclusion.

Michael Madigan is making laws. Losing primary candidates X and Y are not.

But if we poll them equally on issues, 66% of the candidates (2/3) likely do not support gay marriage.

That puts them approximately 20% out of touch with the 46% or more who support gay marriage in most districts in the state.

Deeply flawed basis for an article drawing conclusions about “legislators”.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 2:22 pm
====Remember, these were legislative candidates, not strictly those who made it to the general election.

And nearly half of them won their election which should be telling you that your reaction is over the top. One-half of these people became state legislators–this is clearly stated and reprinted for you above.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 3:19 pm
===Again, lending equal weight to the opinion of Tea Party primary candidates and Lou Lang or Michael Madigan is sorely misguided as a basis for this conclusion.

Again, if this was the case you wouldn’t see the straight line for conservative candidates, you would see bunching in liberal districts. The conservative tea partier who takes on Jan Schakowksy may be overestimating conservative support in that district, but at the same rate as the tea partier who gets elected in a right wing conservative district in Texas.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Mar 6, 13 @ 3:22 pm