219219Should Politicians
Follow the Polls?
Elected officials in America work hard to cast votes and take
other actions that their constituents will like. At first glance,
this behavior seems easy. All a politician needs to do is take a
poll, measure public opinion in his or her state or district, and
comply with the demands expressed in the survey responses.
The problem is, poll results need interpretation. As we saw in
Table 6.2, small differences in question wording can produce
very different responses, or public opinion can remain vague,
despite the polls. As a result, even if representatives want to
follow constituent opinion, they may decide that they don’t
really know enough about these opinions to decide what they
should do.
Imagine that a survey on immigration was conducted
in your congressional district, asking voters if they
favored allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the country
or if people here illegally should be deported as soon as
possible. Suppose that the poll results indicate strong
support for one of the two options and that you yourself
have no strong feelings about illegal immigrants. The
decision you face is: Should you demand that Congress
enact immigration reform consistent with the poll results, or
should you quietly ask that immigration reform be kept off
the agenda?Follow the poll. Elected officials often have strong
incentives to do what constituents demand—in this case, to
push for immigration reform measures that are consistent
with the demands expressed in the poll. As we discuss in
Chapter 10, one of a representative’s jobs is to act in line
with the opinions held by his or her constituents. By this
logic, if most constituents want immigrants to gain legal
status, then you’d ask for a reform proposal that made
legal status possible. Conversely, if the poll indicated that
most constituents favored deportation, you would push
for legislation that funded a program to achieve this goal.
Doing so would allow you to claim some credit for the
specifics of the bill, as well as for your vote, which in theory
would please most of your constituents and increase your
chances of reelection.Stay quiet. As we discuss throughout the chapter, poll
results are highly sensitive to question wording, timing, and
other factors, making it hard to interpret even seemingly
clear findings. Suppose, for example, the poll indicates
support for allowing illegal immigrants to gain legalTAKE
A S TA N Dstatus. However, the survey did not ask about any of the
conditions described in Table 6.2: whether legal status
would require learning English, holding a stable job, paying
back taxes, or other conditions. Even though none of these
conditions were in the question, most of your constituents
probably had some of them in mind when they thought
about how they wanted to answer the question. In other
words, your constituents’ support of immigration reform
depends on what the reforms look like. Even if you want to
act in accordance with their demands, the survey may not
tell you much about what exactly they want.
The situation is no easier if your poll indicates support
for deportation. Would the government search for illegals
to deport or just deport people they happen to find?
What would happen to children whose parents entered
the country illegally but who were born in the United
States and are therefore citizens? For some respondents,
the solution is a nationwide house-to-house search, with
children deported with their parents. But others would
reject a deportation process that did either of these things.
So here again, the poll results, one-sided as they are, don’t
provide you with foolproof guidance about how to vote.Americans in both parties agree on the need for immigration
reform but differ as to what they think the new immigration
policies should be.take a stand
- Suppose you are a politician who feels that changes
in immigration policy are needed but is faced with the
quandary described above. Would you do nothing, so as
to avoid alienating your constituency, or would you force
a policy change and accept the political consequence—
possible removal from office? - What poll questions would you use to get a clearer
picture of public opinion on immigration?
Take a StandFull_07_APT_64431_ch06_198-231.indd 219 16/11/18 1:38 PM