Do the Affluent Override Average Americans? Measuring Policy Disagreement and Unequal Influence

Objective In this article, I seek to adjudicate between contradictory findings in studies of unequal responsiveness that focus on policy issues over which affluent and average Americans disagree. Methods I assess the impact of 22 definitions of policy disagreement and two methods of measuring policy influence—based on win rates and policy change rates—on analyses of unequal responsiveness. Results Win rates are an unreliable measure of influence...