Are Subnational Policymakers' Policy Preferences Nationalized? Evidence from Surveys of Township, Municipal, County, and State Officials

An ongoing debate in American politics concerns the extent to which subnational has become “nationalized.” We advance this by collecting issue-position data on four distinct policy topics from unprecedented national surveys of public officials at both local and state levels. then combine survey with precinct-level presidential vote-share that is tabulated match boundary each respondent's government jurisdiction. In doing so, we demonstrate party sorting substantively statistically significant across a range issues salience, it consistent levels cannot be explained constituents. These findings have implications for scope nationalization as well its substantive representation.