This talk presents a simple theory of voters' preferences over representatives who will vote on their behalf. Few, if any elected representatives are capable of unilaterally implementing their platforms: rather, they choose between options generated by other actors and/or external events. When this is the case, voters' preferences over candidates' platforms will almost always be asymmetric even if their preferences over policy outcomes are symmetric. Furthermore, these induced preferences tend to prefer more extreme ("polarizing") representatives.

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