… As Romney turned his eye to the presidency in the mid-2000s, he became more conservative. Journalists and pundits noted the shift at the time, but much of the electorate apparently did not.
As John Sides recently showed with an elegant graphic, that’s finally changing: the public’s perception of Romney has been slowly shifting conservative—catching up with his actual stances—though the public still sees Romney as more moderate than it sees Barack Obama. …
Has Romney’s rightward shift hurt him in the general election? [cont.]
Gabriel Lenz, UC Berkeley (Model Politics)