Stone Inequality & Social Policy Seminar: Daniel Hopkins

Signifying Something? The Role of Symbolic Issues in Contemporary American Voting Behavior

Daniel Hopkins, Julie and Martin Franklin Presidential Professor of Political Science

Abstract: From flag burning to Israel-Palestine, some prominent issues in American politics directly affect only small fractions of US voters. Do voters respond differently to symbolic issues, those with few tangible impacts on most US citizens? This paper develops hypotheses about when they might, and why activists might overstate such issues' electoral impacts. It answers these questions using a conjoint voting experiment in a 2026 YouGov survey with 830 general-population respondents and 830 activists. Symbolic issue positions prove influential in shaping candidate support even as voters recognize their limited personal stakes. Of those we test, conservative symbolic stances hold particular appeal. Symbolic positions also provide stronger heuristics about candidates' other positions than do economic positions. Activists' perceptions of symbolic issues' electoral impacts are roughly accurate. Voters recognize that political issues vary in their tangible impacts but do not vote on that distinction, complicating accountability and incentivizing elites to highlight certain symbolic issues. 

Daniel Hopkins is a political scientist whose research centers on American politics and select other democracies, with a special emphasis on racial and ethnic politics, subnational politics, political behavior, and research methods. Formally, he is the Julie and Martin Franklin Presidential Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with secondary appointments at the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Annenberg School for Communication. He received a Ph.D. in Government in 2007 from Harvard University, and has taught at Georgetown University and Yale University as well.