In fact, even in areas where a vast majority of Americans do care passionately about something, but it cuts against the interests of the wealthy and elite in America, the general public loses at the national level.
"When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites … or with organized interests, they generally lose," Gilens and Page wrote. "Moreover,
because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it."
Which is why the current U.S. Supreme Court's recent defense of unlimited spending by the wealthiest Americans in the political system has so many people unnerved. Such rulings will only make it even more difficult for popular issues that aren't in favor with elites to gain any traction.
It's also why the national media's endless fascination with "winners and losers" in national public polls may be a bit pointless and even harmful to an understanding of how things happen in the national political system.
If, as the Gilens and Page study indicates, the wealthiest and the elite set both the terms of the public debates and national political action, then it may not even matter all that much about the "winners and losers" in public polling.