Using data on citizens’ ideological preferences and state policy outputs, this article examines the linkage between how well citizens’ preferences are reflected in state government policy decisions and their level of confidence in state elected officials. The analysis reveals that citizens report less confidence in state government as the ideological distance between themselves and state policy outputs increases and that the substantive effect rivals other common predictors of confidence in government. Notably, this relationship is stronger among respondents with higher levels of political interest and holds only for evaluations of state government and not of local or the federal government.
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