The Myth of the Conservative Voter

Note. This post comes from my blog Thinking Slowly. Although I usually only post items that deal specifically with health care at the PUSH website, one of the issues measured in this survey is support for single payer, and its results may help us to understand why it's difficult to get legislators to support universal health care.   L. S.

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.

Tom Corbett to PA's Working Poor: "Drop Dead!" Pt. 4

Part 4. What We Can Do

On Tuesday, February 5, PA Governor Tom Corbett stated that at this time he cannot recommend accepting $38 billion in federal funding to expand Medicaid, thereby denying medical assistance to more than 700,000 Pennsylvanians. So far, I've discussed empirical studies demonstrating that Medicaid improves health and saves lives, the costs and benefits of Medicaid, how those costs and benefits are distributed in Pennsylvania, and the governor's stated reasons for rejecting Medicaid expansion.

The conclusion to this series has proven to be the most difficult to write. I've already had to change the “tomorrow” in part 3 to “next time.” It's time to tie the loose ends together.

First, let me try to justify the rude title of these posts. As previously noted, the Sommers, et al, study contains an estimate of the number of lives saved by Medicaid expansion.

Results correspond to 2840 deaths prevented per year in states with Medicaid expansions, in which 500,000 adults acquired coverage. This finding suggests that 176 additional adults would need to be covered by Medicaid in order to prevent one death per year.

Granted, this is just an estimate. The real number may be somewhat higher or lower, but both mortality and Medicaid enrollment statistics in this country are usually pretty accurate. Corbett's decision will deny health insurance to 719,000 Pennsylvanians whose income is between 46% and 100% of the Federal poverty level. This too is an estimate based on 2010 census data. Using these two estimates, we can compute the number of lives per year that would be saved by Medicaid expansion.

719,000/176 = 4085

I think we can safely estimate that Corbett's decision sentences approximately 4000 Pennsylvanians to death per year, at least for the first five years (the duration of the Sommers study). These lives will be lost in order to save the state (by Corbett's estimate) $4.1 billion over eight years, while simultaneously turning down $37.8 billion in Medicaid funds from the Federal government.

Gov. Tom Corbett

As if to add insult to injury, Corbett has been extremely generous to Pennsylvania's corporate class. His budget projects that corporate tax revenues will drop $311 million (-5.9%) in 2013-14, due mostly to rate cuts in the capital stock and franchise tax beginning in 2014. He proposes to gradually phase out this tax. He also proposes to gradually eliminate the corporate income tax beginning in 2015. Corbett has pledged $1 billion in corporate welfare to Shell Oil to attract a $5 billion ethane cracker plant to Western Pennsylvania. (These are not saltines; they are dirty petrochemicals.) This plant will create hundreds of jobs, far fewer than Medicaid expansion. And Act 13, which imposes a minimal “impact fee” on natural gas drillers, has been described as “the nation's worst corporate giveaway.” Meanwhile, the Governor is not proposing to close tax loopholes, such as the Delaware loophole, which allows two-thirds of Pennsylvania corporations to completely avoid income tax.

I would argue that the humanitarian and economic arguments in favor of Medicaid expansion are overwhelming. In addition, Medicaid expansion would be easy to incorporate into a single-payer system, should the state or the nation move in that direction. I suggest that as health care advocates we immediately begin to lobby for Medicaid expansion with all the enthusiasm we can generate.

The economic logic of Medicaid expansion is so strong, and there are so many powerful economic interests that support it, that I think we will ultimately find ourselves on the winning side of this debate. Here are some of the reasons to be optimistic:

• Governor Corbett's announcement rejecting Medicaid expansion contained the hedge words “at this time,” suggesting that he may be open to changing his mind.
• He will face serious pressure from hospitals that, instead of gaining new customers, face financial losses as a result of having to provide medical services to the uninsured (“forced charity”). Other segments of the health care industry, such as pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies, are also seeing dollar signs disappearing.
• Since Medicaid expenditures ultimately circulate throughout the economy, it's likely that Chambers of Commerce and other business interests will come out in favor of expansion.
• Public opinion data collected last Summer showed 49% of Americans favor of Medicaid expansion in their state and 43% opposed. The number in favor should increase as the costs and benefits become more clear.
• The fact that several other Republican governors who initially opposed expansion, such as Govs. Brewer of Arizona, Kasich of Ohio and Snyder of Michigan, have decided to accept it has cast Corbett in the role of an ideological extremist.
• Since Pennsylvania Democrats who have spoken out so far seem to be unanimous in their support of Medicaid expansion, it may take only a few high profile Republican defectors to convince the Governor that he doesn't have majority support.
• I hedged my statement by saying “ultimately.” Even if it isn't decided to expand Medicaid this year, there is nothing to prevent Pennsylvania from accepting it in the future, should Gov. Corbett not be re-elected and the political balance of power in Harrisburg change.

However, there is no justification for complacency. The stakes for Pennsylvania's working poor are too high.

I've previously reviewed research showing that wealthy people have the greatest influence on political decisions in this country, the influence of the middle class is much less, and the influence of the poor is virtually nonexistent. This suggests that the occasional successes progressive activists have are usually due to our interests temporarily coinciding with those of much more powerful economic forces. For example, passage of the Affordable Care Act itself may have had little to do with providing health care to uninsured Americans, except insofar as this provided the cover story for a massive transfer of wealth from the government to health insurance, pharmaceutical, and other health care corporations.

Medicaid expansion is another instance in which our preference coincides with that of important segments of the economic ruling class. Our support may make a difference; we will never know for sure. But even if Medicaid expansion occurs for reasons having nothing to do with anything we say or do, this is an excellent opportunity for health care advocates to renew their faith in the effectiveness of progressive activism.

I expect more sophisticated analyses of the costs and benefits of Medicaid expansion to become available soon. Meanwhile, if you would like to reprint this analysis or if you want me to edit it down to meet your needs, please let me know.