RSS Feed MenuYesterday on this site, Geoffrey Kabaservice wrote:
Every reliable survey reveals a bell curve distribution of American political opinion. A solid majority of Americans, usually some 70 to 80 percent of the electorate, holds basically moderate views, center-left on social issues and center-right on economic issues. And yet, oddly, the overwhelming majority of elected officials represent the most extreme 10 percent on either side of the spectrum.
I don’t disagree with the general direction of this claim: politicians differ systematically from voters, typically taking more extreme positions, on average, than most voters.
But I don’t know where he got his numbers about “the most extreme 10 percent.” Based on the data I’ve seen, this claim is a bit, well, extreme.
From Michael Herron and Joe Bafumi (and in chapter 8 of Red State, Blue State), here are estimates of the distributions of voters (in 2006), House members, and Senators on a common scale:
House members and Senators’ positions are estimated based on their votes in Congress. Voters’ positions are estimated based on some survey questions where people were asked their views on a number of issues that had also been voted on in Congress. As you can see, elected representatives are generally more extreme than voters. (See here for versions of the above graph broken down by red, purple, and blue states.)
So, yes, Congress members tend to be more extreme than voters — or, to put it even more precisely, Congress members tend to be more ideologically consistent than voters do — but the “extreme 10 percent” thing seems to be overstating it.
See here for further discussion of this point, in the context of the debate over whether America remains a center-right nation.
ottovbvs // May 5, 2009 at 5:48 am
“And yet, oddly, the overwhelming majority of elected officials represent the most extreme 10 percent on either side of the spectrum.”As I pointed out yesterday when commenting on Kabaservice’s piece….this claim is total nonsense. It’s somewhat closer to the truth in the GOP with it’s loss of seats in swing districts and blue states and greater southern concentration but even there it’s a bit of a stretch.
midcon // May 5, 2009 at 1:20 pm
And “oddly” enough elected officials tend to be members of one of the two parties, who “oddly” enough tend to select their own as candidates, which “oddly” enough forces the voters to pick one or the other. So perfectly “odd” that some voters are looking for a party that reflects their views and “oddly” enough are choosing not to affiliate and sometimes choosing not to vote. Which skews the data even more to the poles. Eventually this country may recover from its love affair with the two party system and come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with a 3rd party.
cmhmd // May 6, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I’m no political scientist, but doesn’t this have to do with districting? Safe R or D seats result in the primary functioning as the “real” election, and the true believers on each side show up and determine the general election candidate.Isn’t that why Arnold proposed computer generated districts in California?And we can’t get away from a 2 party system unless we have proportional representation (i.e., a parliamentary system) or, more likely, instant run-off voting, allowing the greens and the Libertarians a shot at winning a few seats.