Ideological congruence between representatives and the represented has preoccupied scholars of political representation for a long time. In this paper we analyze the extent to which local representatives in the Netherlands share similar preferences to the public at large. We employ unique data on local councilmembers who were surveyed using the exact same questionnaire that is fielded to the electorate by the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study. This enables us to measure the overlap in preferences between local representatives and the public at large on a variety of specific political issues. Moreover, we empirically test key hypotheses from the descriptive representation literature that states that people are best represented by representatives with whom they share common characteristics. We therefore analyze whether subgroups among the Dutch electorate are better represented by local politicians with whom they are 'similar' on variables such as education and gender.
