Is Twitter a Game Changer?: Gender, Race and Candidate Survival

• In Event: The 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections on Twitter

Abstract

Despite previous research finding that female candidates use Twitter to focus on issues more often than male candidates, there is still a lack of discourse on how female candidates' use of Twitter affects the outcome of their elections. Is the frequency of tweets, especially those about issues, associated with women winning seats in Congress? Moreover, do all women engage in similar activity when campaigning on Twitter or are there differences in how White women, Black women, Latinas, and Asian American women use Twitter and its effect on their success? Using an intersectional framework, we argue that women candidates are not a monolith when campaigning on Twitter and expect that this will influence their political success. In this study, we explore the relationship between the frequency of women candidates’ tweets and issues and their success and discuss how race and ethnicity shaped the Twitter behavior of candidates during the 2022 midterm election.

Authors

• Songeun Emily Lee, University of Houston

• Jennifer Hayes Clark, University of Houston

• Heather Evans, University of Virginia's College at Wise