General public opinion barely moves policy outcomes when elite preferences are held constant.

Evidence

Clearly, when one holds constant net interest-group alignments and the preferences of affluent Americans, it makes very little difference what the general public thinks. The probability of policy change is nearly the same (around 0.3) whether a tiny minority or a large majority of average citizens favor a proposed policy change (refer to the top panel of figure 1). — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 97

Categorization

• XREF: This is the core ‘control deficit’ empirical finding the reader is hunting for — public opinion influence (~0.3 probability regardless of majority) is the null contrast against which elite influence must be read. — connects to: Average citizens have little independent influence on U.S. policy relative to economic elites. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 1; Economic elites dominate US policy while average citizens exert little influence — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 11; Organized interest-group stances do not substantially track average citizens’ preferences. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 76 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Ordinary citizens hold little independent influence over U.S. policy #corroborates (0.95)
• Correlated elite and mass preferences do not reflect citizen influence on policy. #corroborates (0.85) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 135
• Large public majorities favoring policy change lose most of the time. #corroborates (0.82) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 106
• U.S. policy outcomes contradict majority preferences whenever elites or organized interests disagree #expands (0.78)
• Congruence between policy and affluent preferences cannot distinguish blocking from enacting power. #complicates (0.78) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 28
• Policy congruence favors the rich only where policy rarely changes #qualifies (0.76) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 84
• Broad but shallow public sentiment lets well-placed minorities block national policy change #qualifies (0.74) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1109