Public opinion in the American states: New perspectives using national survey data

General measures of ideology and partisanship derived from national survey data concatenated to the state level have been extremely important in understanding policy and political processes in the states. However, due to the lack of uniform survey data covering a broad array of survey questions, we know little about how specific state-level opinion relates to specific policies or processes. Using the General Social Survey (GSS) disaggregated to the state level, we develop and rigorously test specific measures of state-level opinion on tolerance, racial integration, abortion, religiosity, homosexuality, feminism, capital punishment, welfare, and the environment. To illustrate the utility of these measures, we compare the explanatory power of each to that of a general ideology measure. We use a simulation to clarify conditions under which a national sample frame can produce representative state samples. We offer these measures to advance the study of the role public opinion plays in state politics and policy.