One of the central mechanisms in electoral politics is that political parties shape voters’ issue priorities. An impressive number of studies show (1) that parties selectively emphasize issues on which they have a superior reputation; and (2) that voters’ issue priorities in large part decide their party support in elections. Scholars have engaged with parties issue competition, issue ownership and voters’ issue priorities in order to understand how issues decide elections. All of these studies assume that political parties’ selective issue emphasis influence voters’ issue priorities. Yet, strikingly, this fundamental assumption remains untested. We analyze party emphasis and voter priorities across 13 countries and 9 issues since 1970. We show that voters – regardless of their partisanship – indeed respond to the party system agenda. Yet, partisan sorting is widespread.