Social Media Communications: U.S. Senate Campaigns in 2016 and 2018

• In Event: Campaigning and Financing During US Elections

Abstract

\Conventional studies of campaign communication focus primarily on indirect forms of messaging between candidates and constituents, such as newsletters and political advertisements. However, the rise of digital platforms has changed many aspects of an electoral campaign's communication strategy, allowing candidates to directly communicate with constituents and quickly change messaging strategies. The large volume and high frequency nature of digital campaign communications make it difficult to rely on traditional content analysis methodologies and measurement strategies. Therefore, in this paper we propose utilizing a topic modeling methodology to inductively discover which issues U.S. Senate candidates focus on in their Twitter messages during 2016 and 2018 election cycles. We look at the relationship between each candidate's messaging strategy and election outcomes, finding candidates often focus on “party-owned” issues and dynamically respond to their opponent’s messaging strategy. We further discover that candidates who focused their digital communications on the presidential election were more likely to win office, true for both Democrat and Republican Senate candidates during the contentious 2016 national election.

Authors

• Nicholas Joseph Adams-Cohen, Stanford University

• R. Michael Alvarez, California Institute of Technology