That was exactly, word for word, my thought.
Related: I've noticed that the news will almost always come up with a cynical reason the legislators and executives do things, that they want votes in the next election, and never seem to consider that they might actually believe in the vote or action they are making. I guess the news people think they are digging deeper -- everyone wants to be Woodward and Bernstein -- but they don't even mention the other possibility.
With quite a few startling exceptions, most candidates say what they believe when first running -- many have a non-public work or volunteer history where you can see that they support the same things they say they promote during the campaign -- and that's where they got their original set of voters. So later when they vote for something that their voters want, it's likely they want it too.
Of course there are quite a few who say one thing and and a couple years later say the opposite, and others who don't *say* the opposite but vote the opposite or do things as mayor, governor, president, that are the opposite.