Sure they do. They pay big bucks for campaign advisers who are supposed to figure out what we think so the politician can say the right things the right way and get elected.
Using surveys and focus groups to find the right soundbites isn’t the same thing as understanding us. Acquiring superficial knowledge in order to rebrand a liberal into a temporary “conservative” isn’t the same thing as understanding WHY we prefer conservatism to liberalism. It’s the difference between knowing the what and the why. The elites know the what, most of the time, because they have to, but they never bother to find out the why.