Are There Minorities Intense Enough to Overcome Majority Preferences?

The literature on democratic representation is permeated by the claim that voters who care more about particular policies have disproportionate influence. One mechanism for this influence is that these voters are more likely to vote on the basis of candidate positions. In a simple extension of spatial voting, candidates hew towards the preferences of these more intense voters rather than simply taking the position of the median. This paper tests this mechanism empirically. I measure intensity of preferences in the United States using conjoint analysis, drawing from Sides, Vavreck, and Tausanovitch (2022). Using 4,941,690 experiments from Nationscape, I show that there is a very strong relationship between conjoint effects, which allow for the impact of intensity, and survey marginals, which do not. Among 44 issues, there are no cases in which the vote-maximizing policy position disagrees with the majority position. This strong relationship between marginals and intensity-weighted effects holds true across the nation as a whole and within all 50 states. However, within the Republican party there are some important counter examples. Most notably, Republicans in primary elections may benefit from supporting abortion bans and bans on immigration from predominantly Muslim countries even though these policies are opposed by large majorities of Republicans. In rare but important cases, taking account of preference intensity changes the standard expectation that candidates should hew to the preferences of the median voter.