Texas's 21st congressional district had 651,619 people in 2000. The district contains parts of the Austin and San Antonio metro areas, which grew 37% and 25% respectively in the intervening decade. Let's use the lower value since there are rural areas in there as well. That gives a 2010 estimate of 814,523 people. 27.3% of Texans were under 18 in 2010, which gives a voting age population of 592,158.
In 2010, 236,284 people voted in the district, of which 162,763 voted for Smith. Let's assume all voters know who he is and what he stands for, and that everyone else probably doesn't. That gives us 40% of the district's population that know what's going on. Fewer voted for him, and even fewer like what he stands for, since voting is usually a compromise.
To the people who down voted, do you honestly think my comment was an expression of support for him?
There are clearly some number of people who support this guy, and assuming that everyone who sees his name is also aware that he's a bad person is naive at best.
Nope. Some people downvoted because your assumption that people know the positions of their representatives is wrong.
The average person on the street is has a level of understanding that's closer to "Keep the government out of my medicare!!". People typically don't know the names of their representatives, the policies they stand for and the impact those policies are going to have in practice. They have to know all of those things in order to understand the meaning of "Don't mess with the internet".
I'm amazed at some of things some Arizona[0] politicians support, such as the NDAA, things that should properly outrage the average citizen. But they don't, indeed these people get re-elected, and I believe it is precisely because of the outrageous things they support.
Even if the average Texan knows that Lamar was behind SOPA they may, for whatever reason, still think SOPA was a good idea.
That's some misplaced hope.