Donate to Help Us Fight Back: Persuasion Rhetoric in Political Fundraising

• In Event: Persuasion, Identities, and Campaign Donations

Abstract

What language do political campaigns put into donation solicitations? The rhetorical content that targets the financial electorate can differ from that which targets voters and potentially appeal to different emotions, issues, and ideological stances. Using data from Facebook Ad Library's pages of congressional candidates for the 2020 general election, we distinguish persuasion for donations and votes. We identify how campaigns employ different messages for different recipients using text analysis. We also analyze how fundraising appeals vary by party and electoral characteristics, with additional text data from official campaign websites and major fundraising platforms. We show that the language employed by Republican candidates and committees is associated with stronger sentiments such as anger and disgust. We argue that fundraising messages are an important channel of electoral persuasion that provides valuable hints about how campaigns perceive their financial electorate.

Authors

• Seo-young Silvia Kim, American University

• Jan Zilinsky, Technical University of Munich

• Brian Michael Brew, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill