Poli 10 final

Public Opinion What is “public opinion” public opinion: citizen’s attitudes about political issues, personalities, institutions, and events Politicians want to respond to public opinion to win re-election Politicians want to lead public opinion to secure their own policy preferences How People Express Opinions Polls, but also… social media posts, protests, calls/letter to politicians, meetings/town halls with lawmakers, writing to newspaper, donating to candidates, lawn signs, working on campaigns, voting, etc. Sources of Public Opinion: Personal Factors Self-interest (your economic status) Values (cultural, fairness, familial, religious) Information (some people do not know politics) Sources of Public Opinion: Personal Factors political socialization (friends, political environment we grow up in, family) Media, movies, TV Opinion leaders (people don’t have strong political opinions of their own and just follow what someone says because they want to have a political opinion) Sources of Public Opinion: Political Factors partisanship (e.g., republicans think the economy is bad when under a democratic president but then suddenly think the economy is great when a republican president is elected) Ideology: organized attitudes about how government should work, tied to underlying principles Liberal: government should play a larger role in society; supports more government involvement in economy, social services, civil rights Conservative: government should play a smaller Rolle in society and organization (e.g., churches) and free market should solve problems How Public Opinion Changes changes in the political agenda, party positions Issue importance Thermostatic public opinion Probably NOT misinformation Polling What is polling? “poll” originally synonymous with “head” as in “head count” to gauge opinion Polling: systematic methodology to collect and quantify opinions from a representative group of people to understand public sentiment, predict outcomes, or inform decision-making processes Election polling Issue opinion polling Why polling? The ideal: a perfect understanding of everyone’s opinion The practical goal: estimate opinion from a random representative sample of individuals The reality: way more complicated… Elements of a Poll sample: people to interview Questionnaire: a set of questions to ask everyone (ways questions are phrased —may incline people to answer a specific answer) Mode: the way you interview people (face to face, social media, email, etc.) The Infamous Literary Digest Project 1936 - nationwide poll of Americans through Magazine and postcards with ballots (38 percentage off) (Landon v Roosevelt) (today, we are off by about 2 %) (magazines and postcards sent to people who have cars so the people who responded were in Landon’s (republican’s) demographic audience) The sample not protests or x posts DO Take a simple random sample of the population (better to do it from a large sample) How hard could it be… A “simple” random sample… not so simple sampling bias: no “directory” of Americans (no website that lists every person in the U.S. so like you gonna contact every person?) Non-response bias: some people don't answer Margin of Error: Margin of error (technical definition): range within which the true population value is likely to fall Margin of error (conventional definition): amount of random sampling error in a survey’s results, reported to indicate precision Margin of errors to both candidates, so differences may not be meaningful Doesn’t account for non-representative sampling and bias’s Look at trends, not individual polls Visualizing Margin of Error suppose we are polling the 2024 national popular vote (Trump wins with 50.7% of two party vote) We randomly sample 1,000 people and ask them if they are voting for Trump or Harris Just by randomness, we get 51.8% for Trump (1.1 point miss) If we sample a few more people, there is more variation Weighting some people are more likely to respond (e.g., older, whiter, wealthier) Weighing increasing a sub-group’s contribution to the result One issue: what if the missing voters are different Forecasts are like predictions When Polls are close, they aren’t great at calling races Political Parties Americans Hate Their Parties Americans are liking their parties less and less as time goes on “A division of the republic into two great parties… is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under out constitution” — John Adams Americans are loving third parties more now “In 17 of the 24 elections since 1924, the two parties topped 98 percent of the vote. There have been only four elections in that span where the democrats and republicans did not combine sot capture at least 94.1 percent of the vote—and two of those were Ross Perot’s runs in 1992 and 1996 (the other two were 1968 and 1980)” —Joshua Spivak for TIME What Are Parties Coalition (politicians, interest groups, activists, voters, etc.) that seeks to control government by winning elections Solve collective action problems by coordinating group activities, promoting issues programs, translating public preferences into policies Three Roles of Parties: Parties in Government coordinate, reduce transaction cost (opportunity, money, energy): (they know which principles to follow) (you don’t have to talk to all 435 members in the House to revise a bill for example) (foundation you can build upon if you follow a party — people might want to work with you because you’re both apart of the same party — easier than talking to each member when they are all free agents) Select leaders, set the agenda: (to further reduce transaction costs who elect someone else to take on these costs) (gives one problem to focus on) Introduce and pass legislation: (Parties work together to pass bills they support and oppose) Three Roles of Parties: Parties as Institutions (they include activists, people in government, interest groups, voters, state and local politicians, donors, etc.) Recruit candidates, mobilize voters, and win elections (RNC and DNC for example) (they take on the cost of getting votes) Provide cues to voter (people don’t follow politics that much) (you are going to vote for someone just because they are a democrat or republican, it saves you time from researching their policies) Enforce collective action and responsibility (parties make their members generally hold the same issues as the democratic citizens/public) Two-Party System constitution establishes how candidates win elections: single-member districts, plurality winner (”winner-takes-all” or “first past the post”) (people aren’t going to run a third party candidate because you are going to only get about 10% of the vote which doesn’t get you the win) (you aren’t going to waste your vote on the third party, you are going to win for the person closest to your views from the other party) (Ex: Bernie Sanders ran as a democrat even though he is an independent because he knew that third parties don’t win and he could win under on of the two biggest parties as he could just run up the ranks and compete against the democratic candidates and win) Duverger’s Law: single-member plurality systems are two-party systems Decentralized Parties U.S. parties are “loose networks” rather than hierarchical organizations (Trump can make a bill and tell them to pass it but the congress members can choose not to listen) Decentralization allows for ideological flexibility and “big tents” (faith and flag conservatives and ambivalent right for example are right parties but one is super extreme and the other is super loose) (“big tents” means like combine the different hierarchical positions of party stance — for example like really far left and closer to the right but still left— to get all their support and win since they are under all the same party) Three Roles of Parties: Parties in the Electorate (theres like an equal amount of far left, middle left, close left and close right, middle right, and far right and that’s been the trend for decades) Moderates (?) in the electorate They usually just don’t like the two parties or two faces of the parties (all over the map on what they think) Changing Perceptions of the Two Parties (At first it was no difference and no they think there is a big difference) (this is because people said American parties are too moderate and need to be more different so that voters can vote for what they want and what they support) Sorting People now know what they are voting for Sorts conservatives with republicans and progressives are sorted with Democrats (few liberal republicans and Conservative Republicans) Gender Gap Men and women vote for different parties (before, there wasn’t much as a gap and now there is a big gap such as men vote for conservatives and women vote progressive) More demographic gaps between parties (ex: diploma divide—conservatives less education and progressives have higher education— but this was the opposite before) (ex: married and single people, working class and rich people, low-income and high-income) Elections Direct democracy Representative Democracy Two wolves and a lamb theory (impactful in the creation of the constitution) (the lamb is the minority and their rights get trampled on as the wolves would eat the lamb if they all voted on it) Representative democracy as a principal-agent problem What Elections Do Motivates responsiveness (agents want to be re-elected) Gives citizens a say in who represents them (selecting agents) Allows for “fire alarm” oversight People are deciding to vote less? Why? electoral outcomes are collective benefits (free riding): (transaction cost is less because now you don’t have to research or cast your ballot) (people think that their vote wont be the deciding vote between two candidates) The paradox of voting (people think it doesn’t matter if they vote for the republican candidate because they know they are going to lose anyway) Older people, white voters, people with a higher income, and people with a higher education are more likely to turn out more to the polls How Voters Decide partisan loyalty Issues and policy stances: progressive (forward looking) versus prospective (backward-looking) voting How Candidates position themselves: Median Voter Theorem where candidates choose to position themselves at one of the ten ideological locations. Voters are evenly distributed along the ideological spectrum, (ie. 10% at each location) (there are 10 elections with extreme left is at the end of the left end and extreme right is at the end of the right end) (candidates at location 5 or 6 usually have voters who vote independent) Nationalization and Federalism Federalism: Separation of powers between federal and state governments What about local government? Not mentioned in the constitution Local governments help states solve problems, but solve at the state’s pleasures Why Federalism? History Limiting power 10th amendment: “the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” Laboratories of Democracy: “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country”-Justice Louis Brandeis (1932) Such as California legalizing marijuana and everyone else followed and Biden tried to make this national later on Two Flavors of Federalism dual federalism (separate spheres) Shared federalism/concurrent powers (shared powers, eg., taxation, business regulation, etc.) Before, states had more power and attention but now, it has shifted towards the national government Trends Toward National power Growing federal responsibility Such as in times of crisis such as war Direct election of the senate Senators used to be elected by state governments Senators are more attentive and responsive to us Supremacy clause National government wins over state government Elastic clause Create laws that they need they need which gives national government more power 10th Amendment? Nationalization knowledge and attention to national politics at the expense of local politics You know your president Using the same criteria to evaluate local and national candidates You vote for party on everything just because you want your president to be democrat Influence of president/national issues on congressional elections “People vote for the party not the person’ (Fiorina 2016) Has increased dramatically over the years Few Split Districts split presidential and house majorities in congressional districts today are the lowest in the century Democrat or republican all across the board just because of the party, not because of WHO they are actually voting for The Importance of the presidency the national comment of the House vote now exceeds the personal/local component (it was the opposite before 2000) You would rather know the president’s past vote share than the candidate’s last vote share if we were trying to predict if the candidate would win State Government Trifectas governor, state assembly, and state senate are all one party We used to have divided state government but now republicans are now controlling all three now What do Parties do with Trifectas Democratic Party: major initiative in state where democrats now have control of both houses of the state legislature and the governor’s office Ban on gay conversion therapy Minimum wage above federal $7.25 Free college for at least 2 years Use popular vote instead of electoral college for presidential elections Marijuana legalized or decriminalized Republic Party: major initiative in state where Republicans now have control of both houses of the state legislature and the governor’s office Anti-boycott/disinvestment/sanctions of Israel “Right to work”/no mandatory union dues Medicaid work requirements Allowed to carry a concealed weapon without a permit Ban on sanctuary cities Where is Nationalization Coming From voter sorting Candidates didn’t have the exact party ideals, many coalitions, but not that is different (no conservative democrats or liberal republicans) Candidate sorting “[we] don’t know how many voters would split their tickers if they were offered chances to vote for conservative Democratic or liberal Republican House candidates because the parties off them few such choices anymore” —Fironia (2016) Campaign finance Presidential campaigns have more money Media nationalization and polarization Media gets more attention about country issues and the president The Decline of Local news more than 200 counties have zero local news outlets We would rather read the NYT than local newspaper —> no one reading or watching so they die out because they don’t get any money Is Nationalization bad? Good: simplification of Choices We don’t have time to learn about everything, we might as well just learn about things on the national level Bad: Division, nationalized representation They are going to run on what the president wins on Polarization Defining Polarization Polarization: small within-party differences and large between-party differences How Polarized are Senators? very (all but two are more towards the middle Wasn’t always like this (1990-2000 is when a drift happened) (there used to be some overlap) (there was a split but not as bad) How We calculate These Polarization Scores - with a table chart Why did Polarization Increase? so many reasons (Barber and McCarty 2013) Electorate: voter sorting, southern realignment, gerrymandering, primary elections, economic inequality, money in politics, media Politicians: congressional rules change, majority party tactics, party power, teamsmanship, norms Southern Realignment: southern states became more republican Southern democrats are replaced by southern republicans State Party Switch (southern states used to be democrat) Southern states didnt like the VRA 1965 so they started voting Republican Most of the southern democrats were conservative democrats Competition and Message Politics republican party became much more competitive in Congress —> “insecure majorities” Better to hold out to “get more next time” than compromise today Tried to get other members from being elected if they accused members of the republican party voting for a democrat bill, didn’t vote on Democrat’s bills so that they could say the democrat is ineffective, too liberal, and wouldn’t get elected. Newt Gingrich Speaker of the House (1995-1999), responsible for 1994 “Republican Revolution” Pioneered a combative strategy in the House minority in the 1980s and 1990s Polarization and Presidential Leadership when the president talks about an economic issue for example, the division increases between parties and when the president doesn’t, theres less of a division (17.1 difference) Biden’s Infrastructure Agenda 71 supported/15 opposed to Amtrak proposal 57 supported/29 opposed to Biden’s Amtrak’s Proposal “Despite talks of bipartisanship and unity, Democrats have turned to a partisan, top-down, rampant spending style of governing with President Biden’s infrastructure vision as the latest example”—Rep. French Hill (R-AR) “The American Jobs Plan is a chance to build back better… This includes: roads, bridges, public transportation, drinking water, broadband, and good, clean energy union jobs” — Rep. Madeline Dean (D-PA) Republican’s use Biden’s name to create disapproval of the bill just because its from Biden, although the bill is obviously good Presidential Cues and the Nationalization of of Congressional Rhetoric, 1973-2016 President is “the lightning rod of national politics” How does president’s symbolic power shape congressional communication dynamics and public opinion? Lawmakers references president to nationalize and polarize debate, but it depends on party (Democrats don’t usually but Republicans do) Measuring Presidential References The Opposition Party References the President More Often (House) When there is a republican president, they mention the president more in speeches—vice versa for Democrats But How Do Voters React If democrats reference Biden in speech, they will vote for the bill and Biden isn’t mentioned, they wouldn’t Republicans wouldn’t vote for the bill regardless if he was mentioned for not Republican Senator Speech Suppose a Republican Senator from a state like yours gives the following floor speech about infrastructure: “Today, I rise to voice my opposition to [President Biden’s/this] infrastructure bill. What we choose to invest now is not only for today, but for tomorrow. We need to enact a long-term program to make sure our roads, bridges, railroads and airports are modernized. [President Biden/this] bill will not make us competitive for business—in my state, across the nation, and around the world. For that reason, I oppose [President Biden/this] proposal.” Do you approve or disapprove of the way this Senator is handling his job? (Strongly approve - Strongly disapprove, 4pt) This Helps the Opposition, But Not the President’s Party it helps the republican party if they mention the Republican president It doesn’t help Democrat party if they mention the republican president It doesn’t help (barely) the republican party if they mention the democrat president It helps (barely) if they mention the democrat president Conclusion President is a symbol, out-party lawmakers invoke president to polarize constituents Democratic Backsliding Coups coups are decreasingly (both the total amount of coups and successful coups) Democratic Backsliding: slow erosion of democratic institutions, entrenches power of leader(s) who cannot be removed by democratic means Why Backsliding? Partisan competition Example: partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin (from reading) Polarization Negative partisanship (you dislike the other side much more than you like your own side) Secession The parties The public The public will continue to vote for their party even if their candidate did something anti-democratic and the other side didn't So what’s the solution mutual toleration Forbearance You should follow the rules and norms to play fair Lack of forbearance (breaking norms, finding loop holes) Ex: gerrymandering