A recently released study by the Utah Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group, illustrated the disconnect between rank-and-file party voters and convention delegates. In both parties, delegates were more politically polarized, identifying with the extremes of their parties, than were voters.
This was most pronounced among Republicans. The Foundation survey found that voters and delegates agreed on eight of 10 priority issues, but they put them in far different order. Voters placed health care No. 1, while delegates put it sixth. Delegates put state rights as their No. 1 priority and public lands issues as fourth. Voters put those issues at sixth and tenth, respectively.
Voters listed crime and air quality in their top 10 list. Those items didn’t make delegates’ list, but energy issues and transportation/traffic did.
It would be unreasonable to expect a lock-step agreement on all issues, but the difference in priorities explains why state lawmakers sometimes do things that contrast sharply with the desires of their constituents.
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