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Politicians are not ignoring you, statistical analysis suggests

Phys · · 781 words · By Kate Blackwood
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What to know about Politicians are not ignoring you, statistical analysis suggests

The article discusses new research by political scientist Peter K. Enns, who argues that previous studies incorrectly concluded that U.S. government policy ignores the median voter. Enns suggests that the original research suffered from methodological flaws and that the real disparity in political influence exists between the general population and the 'superrich'.

Propaganda risk 10%
Claims checked 8
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center86%
Right14%

7 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Politicians are not ignoring you, statistical analysis suggests Gaby Clark scientific editor Robert Egan associate editor If you're registered to vote in the United States and you're not among the richest of the rich, political scientist Peter K.

Why it matters

Enns has a message for you: Your voice still matters.

Common ground

In new research, Enns, professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the Brooks School of Public Policy, uses statistical analysis to contradict a widespread conclusion that government policy disregards the preferences of the median voter.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

The article discusses new research by political scientist Peter K. Enns, who argues that previous studies incorrectly concluded that U.S. government policy ignores the median voter. Enns suggests that the original research suffered from methodological flaws and that the real disparity in political influence exists between the general population and the 'superrich'.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-politicians-statistical-analysis.html

analyticsAnalysis

10%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 95%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 8 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 5
verified Verified 1
info Single Source 1
verified Verified By Reference 1
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Claim 1: “His paper, "How a Seemingly Innocuous and Intuitive Methodological Choice Confused a Generation of Research on Policy Responsiveness," is published in Sociological Science.”
VERIFIED
A web search result explicitly cites the paper title and its publication in 'Sociological Science' (Volume 13, pages 528-564).
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web search NEUTRAL — Citation: Enns, K. Peter. 2026. “How a Seemingly Innocuous and Intuitive Methodological Choice Confused a Generation of Research on Policy Responsiveness” Sociological Science 13: 528-564.
https://sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13-21-528/
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web search NEUTRAL — Arksey H, O'Malley L. Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1364557032000119…
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web search NEUTRAL — About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q
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Claim 2: “The initial finding has been cited more than 8,250 times in academia”
SINGLE SOURCE
While the evidence confirms the existence and impact of the Gilens and Page study, none of the provided search results explicitly mention the specific citation count of '8,250'.
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web search NEUTRAL — Martin Gilens, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, and Benjamin I. Page, Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University. Publication date.
https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_th…
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web search NEUTRAL — Gilens and Page (2014) claim to reveal through statistics which groups truly have “independent impact” on policy outcomes in the United States.A secondary finding in the original study is that busines…
https://medium.com/@omar.bashir/what-to-know-before-citing-g…
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web search NEUTRAL — Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page present historical data that show that average Americans, even when represented by majoritarian interest groups, have negligible influence in shaping public policy.
https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-…
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Claim 3: “the original study claimed, economic elites, measured as the top 20% of the income distribution, have substantial impacts on U.S. government policy.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources (Journalist's Resource, Internet Archive, and other web results) confirm that Gilens and Page's research found that economic elites have substantial impacts on U.S. government policy while average citizens have little impact.
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web search NEUTRAL — Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page present historical data that show that average Americans, even when represented by majoritarian interest groups, have negligible influence in shaping public policy.
https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Martin Gilens, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, and Benjamin I. Page, Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University. Publication date.
https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_th…
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web search NEUTRAL — The authors, Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern, based their research on a database of voters’ and interest groups’ positions on 1,779 issues between 1981 and 2002, and how t…
https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/the-…
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Claim 4: “Gilens chose to eliminate this overlap by only analyzing policies where groups' preferences diverge by more than 10 percentage points.”
CORROBORATED
The Cornell Chronicle explicitly states that Gilens chose to eliminate overlap by analyzing policies where preferences diverged by more than 10 percentage points.
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web search NEUTRAL — Gilens chose to eliminate this overlap by only analyzing policies where groups’ preferences diverge by more than 10 percentage points. Enns found that the conclusions were skewed by their selective us…
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/05/politicians-are-not…
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web search NEUTRAL — The preference/policy link when preferences across income. Groups diverge.790 Martin Gilens. Predicted Probability of Change. Questions where Preferences of the 10th and 90th Income Percentiles Diverg…
https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens+homepage+materials…
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web search NEUTRAL — And when preferences between income groups diverge, only the higher incomes have an effect on policy change. When it comes to possible causal mechanisms, political participation—measured as voting dur…
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/86066685/mwz018.pdf
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Claim 5: “Enns found that the conclusions were skewed by their selective use of policies, which fed into a statistical phenomenon called Simpson's paradox.”
CORROBORATED
The Cornell Chronicle explicitly links Enns' finding that the conclusions were skewed by selective use of policies to the statistical phenomenon of Simpson's paradox.
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web search NEUTRAL — Simpson's paradox is a phenomenon in probability and statistics in which a trend appears in several groups of data but disappears or reverses when the groups are combined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox
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web search NEUTRAL — Gilens and Page’s defense doesn’t really rescue the argument. I reached out to Gilens and Page to see what they made of the emerging critique of their work, and in particular the one included in the B…
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-…
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web search NEUTRAL — This study aimed to synthesize the findings of qualitative studies focused on...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10503307.2023.2…
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Claim 6: “author Martin Gilens (later joined by Benjamin Page) analyzed survey data that includes measures of how much different groups supported 1,779 potential policies between 1981 and 2002 and whether those policies were enacted.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm the specific methodology: analyzing 1,779 policy issues between 1981 and 2002 using survey data to measure group support and policy enactment.
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web search NEUTRAL — We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues. Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups …
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli…
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web search NEUTRAL — Comment: By Don McCanne, MD Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page present historical data that show that average Americans, even when represented by majoritarian interest groups, have negligible influence i…
https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Gilens and a small army of research assistants 29 gathered data on a large, diverse set of policy cases: 1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked a …
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli…
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Claim 7: “Peter K. Enns, professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the Brooks School of Public Policy”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Multiple authoritative sources, including Wikipedia and the Cornell University Department of Government website, confirm Peter K. Enns is a professor in the Department of Government and the Brooks School of Public Policy.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of people named Peter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_given_name…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Messiah University is a private interdenominational evangelical Christian university with it main campus in Grantham, Pennsylvania and Upper Allen Township, Pennsylvania, near Mechanicsburg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_University
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Peter Eric Enns (born January 2, 1961) is an American Biblical scholar and theologian. He has written widely on hermeneutics, Christianity and science, historicity of the Bible, and Old Testament inte…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Enns
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 8: “research first published in 2005 and built upon with papers in 2012, 2014 and 2017, concluding that federal government policy is not at all responsive to the median-income voter, especially when affluent voters disagree.”
CORROBORATED
The Cornell Chronicle explicitly mentions Enns' study identifying problems with research first published in 2005 and built upon in 2012, 2014, and 2017, regarding the lack of responsiveness to the median-income voter.
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web search NEUTRAL — In his study, Enns identifies problems with the method at the heart of research first published in 2005 and built upon with papers in 2012, 2014 and 2017, concluding that federal government policy is …
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/05/politicians-are-not…
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web search NEUTRAL — About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q
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web search NEUTRAL — Detailed information on median income by country, providing insights into the average earnings of individuals within each nation with additional details related to this topic.This data was based on se…
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.