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Policy Preferences of Party Elites and Masses

Conflict or Consensus?

Auburn University

William R. Shaffer

Purdue University

Ronald E. Weber

Louisiana State University

This study examines the sharing of public policy preferences between American state political party elites and party followers in the mass public on ten matters of state policy. Employing responses from about 1600 county political party chairmen in the 50 states and responses of party followers in several national-level surveys, we find meaningful differences between Democratic and Republican party elites, with the Democratic chairmen consistently more liberal on the ten matters of state policy than the Republican chairmen. Smaller differences in policy preferences, generally, are reported between the Democratic and Republican followers in the mass public. Spatially, the Democratic elite, the Democratic mass, and the Republican mass are grouped together near a centrist position on the policy questions, while the Republican elite is positioned at a distance in the conservative direction on most of the ten matters of state policy.

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