Most political issues receive little attention from the public and policymakers. How does the public come to hold their views on such low salience issues? Is public opinion responsive to cues from co-partisan political elites? Or are attitudes still structured by underlying partisan loyalties or other individual characteristics? This study addresses these questions by conducting two original, representative surveys in the United States and Germany. A series of survey experiments test the extent to which public opinion toward obesity- and tobacco-related public health policies is responsive to elite cues from Green Party-SDP coalition and CDU/CSU politicians in Germany and Democratic and Republican politicians in the United States. The experiments indicate relatively little responsiveness, and they show some indication of backlash for cues from political leaders of opposing parties. The findings contribute to understanding of popular attitudes toward obesity-related public health policies and low salience policy issues more generally.