Voters Actually Do Know What Policies They Like

Our research shows us that voters have heterodox views, meaning they hold a mix of traditionally liberal and traditionally conservative views at the same time. Some have argued that this is because voters don’t have concrete positions on policies, but our research finds that voters have heterodox views precisely because they have concrete positions on different policies. 

A natural follow-up question is if voters understand those views to be heterodox or whether they believe they are ideologically consistent across different issues. Do they understand that some of their positions are at odds with their party? Can voters correctly place relevant policies on a liberal-to-conservative scale?

Yes, they absolutely can. Voters are quite good at matching policy positions to ideological viewpoints.

Voters, across partisan divides, accurately say that deporting illegal immigrants is conservative and that the government providing health care to everyone is liberal. Since these issues have both been in the news this year, voters are also accurately taking clues from the partisanship of the elected officials who champion these policies.

Independents are more likely to be unsure about the placement of policies, but not by much. Republicans and Democrats can both reliably identify government-provided health care as a liberal position (though Republicans see it more as an extremely liberal one).

However, we see a breakdown on policies that have had mixed signals from elected leaders in Washington. Voters are not sure where to place “most voters should not pay any taxes on their income.” While an anti-tax inclination has long been a conservative banner held by the Republican Party, left-wing Democratic figures like Senators Chris Van Hollen and Cory Booker have recently taken up the mantle by embracing ‘don’t tax working people’ rhetoric. Since voters are receiving mixed signals on this issue, they are unable to see through the rhetoric to place the issue on the ideological scale.

Personal Ideology

In every poll we conduct, as is standard in polling, we ask voters to place themselves on the following ideological scale:

• Extremely liberal
• Liberal 
• Moderate
• Conservative
• Extremely conservative
  

Most pollsters have added this question to the end of every survey without thinking about it. It is just something every poll has. We decided to dig in to see how voters felt about it and whether they could accurately place policies on the scale.