Biased Perceptions of Partisans and Party Leaders

• In Event: Ideology and Partisanship: Convergences and Divergences

Abstract

Prior research has reported that Americans hold biased perceptions about the composition of US parties, on both policy and demographic dimensions. Survey respondents estimate that members of the two major parties take more extreme and ideologically consistent policy positions than they do, and vastly overestimate the frequency with which partisans belong to other social groups stereotypically associated with their party. We argue that evidence of these trends may appear, in part, due to systematic measurement error. Drawing on novel survey experimental evidence, we reassess the degree of partisan stereotyping, and the roll of misperceptions in affective evaluations of the mass and elite parties.

Authors

• Lilla Orr, Stanford University

• Gregory Huber, Yale University