How elites misread public opinion
&gt; What’s stopping elites and elected officials from accessing the public opinion polling that social scientists use to understand what the public wants?<p>&gt; Renshon: Absolutely nothing is stopping elites from using the same public opinion data ... it’s also not unusual for politicians to discount or dismiss public opinion polls when they don’t like the results<p>I am curious if we are reasoning from stable ground here. Are opinion polls actually representative of what public opinion is - and more importantly, how the public will <i>vote</i>?<p>It seems that on a lot of hot button issues - for instance, guns - opinion polls show considerable support for restrictions that simply do not manifest when there are actual referenda on the issue. Polling on guns tends to skew substantially to the left of the actual referenda.