In a two-party system, a party can win a national election with mostly unpopular policies if the election becomes a referendum on the one or two issues where the winning party has the more popular position. A winning party doesn’t have to represent a broad majority agenda to win an election. It just has to represent the more popular position on the most salient issue of the election. This is why elections are crude instruments for translating public will into public policy, especially in a two-party system. Voters are constrained by the choices on offer. It gets worse. In a two-party system, a
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