Who Do Local Politicians Respond To? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Denmark

Politicians need to take issue positions in public to get elected. In doing so, they have to balance their own personal beliefs with those of their party and voters. We analyze who – if any – they are responsive to. Previous research on position taking has primarily relied on observational data from confidential elite surveys or parliamentary speeches, which raises concerns about internal and external validity. We analyze politicians' public position taking using their answers from a Voting Advice Application (VAA) during the 2025 local elections in Denmark – a tool used by more than half of the entire Danish electorate. We randomly assigned the candidates to receive information about the position of their voters or party on one of the questions prior to filling out the VAA. This allows us to causally identify politicians’ responsiveness in a setting that is highly visible to both parties and voters. Furthermore, we asked the same politicians the same questions in a separate confidential survey during the same election campaign. This allows us to compare politicians' public positions to their more private ones. The results move the field forward by allowing us to understand who local politicians respond to in the real world.