By ‘bridging’ political surveys, we can measure levels of representation in American politics

Democracy only functions if elected officials represent the wishes of their constituents. But in a country with hundreds of millions of voters, and thousands of legislators, how can we measure how the policy preferences of constituents affect the actions of their representatives? Chris Tausanovitch argues that by aggregating and ‘bridging’ differing surveys, we can estimate liberal-conservative scores for voters, and legislative responsiveness for states, congressional districts, state legislative districts, and even cities.