Replication Data for: Expectations for policy change and participation

This is replication data for the paper "Expectations for policy change and participation", accepted at Public Opinion Quarterly. The abstract is: What policy changes do people expect from elections, and how do those expectations influence the decision to vote? This paper examines voters’ beliefs about what candidates would actually do if given political power. I first find that public respondents underestimate the impediments that the separation of powers poses to policy change. Respondents from the general population expected much more legislation to result from the 2020 election than political scientists completing an identical survey. Second, voters expected much more policy change than non-voters. Most importantly, high expectations predicted validated voter turn out better than participation in the previous presidential election, education, party identification (as well as partisan strength and ideology), and political interest. These results support explanations for the decision to vote which center on the benefits that people believe their preferred candidate will deliver.