Stopping the Steal and Selling the Big Lie: An Analysis of Tweets and Certification Votes Among House Republicans in the Wake of the 2020 Presidential Election

Abstract

As our nation struggles to make sense of the pathologies of conspiracy thinking and hyper-polarization in our body politics, this study investigates why some members of the House GOP caucus used Twitter to promote conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. Our study first examines the predictors of conspiracy theory tweeting, and second, whether this messaging was related to voting for or against the certification of presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania on January 6th. Our results suggest President Trump’s election performance in 2020, conspiratorial tweeting, and freshman status of House members were the driving factors of voting behavior on January 6th.

Keywords

congressional behavior conspiracy theories Donald Trump election fraud January 6th social media

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Armaly

M. T.

Buckley

D. T.

Enders

A. M.

(2022). Christian nationalism and political violence: Victimhood, racial identity, conspiracy, and support for the capitol attacks nationalism and political violence: Victimhood, racial identity, conspiracy, and support for the capitol attacks. Political Behavior, 44(2), 937–960. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y

Baines

P. R.

Harris

Lewis

B. R.

(2002). The political marketing planning process: Improving image and message in strategic target areas. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 20(1), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.1108/02634500210414710

Ballard

Ryan

D. T.

Spencer

Herseltine

Johnson

(2022). Dynamics of polarizing rhetoric in congressional tweets. Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Baum

M. A.

Druckman

J. N.

Simonson

M. D.

Lin

Perlis

R. H.

(2021). What I saw on the road to insurrection: Internal political efficacy, conspiracy beliefs and the effect of depression on support for the January 6th storming of the capitol.

Bond

B. E.

Neville-Shepard

(2023). The rise of presidential eschatology: Conspiracy theories, religion, and the january 6th insurrection. American Behavioral Scientist, 67(5), 681–696. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642211046557

Boulianne

Lee

(2022). Conspiracy beliefs, misinformation, social media platforms, and protest participation. Media and Communication, 10(4), 30–41. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i4.5667

Brennan Center for Justice (2017). Background on Trump’s ‘voter fraud’ commission. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/background-trumps-voter-fraud-commission (Accessed August 23, 2022).

Campos-Domínguez

Esteve-Del-Valle

Renedo-Farpón

(2022). Rhetoric of parliamentary disinformation on twitter. Comunicar, 30(72), 47–58. https://doi.org/10.3916/c72-2022-04

Cohen

(2021). 6 conspiracy theories about the 2020 election—debunked. CBS news. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/presidential-election-2020-conspiracy-theories-debunked/(Accessed August 23, 2022).

10.

Douglas

Sutton

Cichocka

(2017). The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538–542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417718261

11.

Gardner

Isaac

(2022). More than 100 GOP primary winners back Trump’s false fraud claims. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/14/more-than-100-gop-primary-winners-back-trumps-false-fraud-claims/(Accessed August 23, 2022).

12.

Grant

W. J.

Moon

Busby Grant

(2010). Digital dialogue? Australian politicians’ use of the social network tool twitter. Australian Journal of Political Science, 45(4), 579–604. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2010.517176

13.

Hameleers

(2022). Empowering the people’s truth through social media? (De)Legitimizing truth claims of populist politicians and citizens. Politics and Governance, 10(1), 210–219. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4726

14.

Hameleers

Sophie

(2020). Constructing discourses on (Un)Truthfulness: Attributions of reality, misinformation, and disinformation by politicians in a comparative social media setting. Communication Research, Online First, 1–24.

15.

Hoffmann

C. , P.

Suphan

Meckel

(2016). The impact of use motives on politicians’ social media adoption. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 13(3), 239–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2016.1169241

16.

Hong

Choi

Kim

T. K.

(2019). Why do politicians tweet? Extremists, underdogs, and opposing parties as political tweeters. Policy & Internet, 11(3), 305–323. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.201

17.

Koblin

(2022). At least 20 million watched jan. 6 hearing. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/business/media/jan-6-hearing-ratings.html (Accessed August 23, 2022).

18.

Mitchell

Mark

Baxter

Elisa

(2020). Political divides, conspiracy theories and divergent news sources heading into 2020 election. Pew research center. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/09/16/political-divides-conspiracy-theories-and-divergent-news-sources-heading-into-2020-election/(Accessed September 1, 2023).

19.

Olmsted

K. S.

(2019). Real enemies: Conspiracy theories and American democracy, world war I to 9/11. 10th Anniversary edition. Oxford University Press.

20.

Parks

(2022). Election deniers are running to control voting. Here’s how they’ve fared so far. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/29/1113707783/election-deniers-secretary-of-state-arizona-finchem (Accessed August 23, 2022).

21.

Seidman

(2013). Self-presentation and belonging on facebook: How personality influences social media use and motivations. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(3), 402–407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.10.009

22.

Shapiro

M. A.

(2007). Pussyfooting around November? A longitudinal analysis of politicians’ twitter use in 2014. Economic Review, 97, 1877–1900.

23.

Solis

(2021). 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories remain central to many republican campaigns. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/2020-election-fraud-conspiracy-theories-remain-central-to-many-republican-campaigns (Accessed August 23, 2022).

24.

Stewart

(2022). Trust in elections. Dædalus, 151(4), 234–253. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01953

25.

Towner

T. L.

Dulio

D. A.

(2011). The Web 2.0 election: Does the online medium matter? Journal of Political Marketing, 10(1–2), 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2011.540220

26.

Villeneuve

(2018). Report: Trump commission did not find widespread voter fraud. https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-elections-f5f6a73b2af546ee97816bb35e82c18d (Accessed August 23, 2022).

27.

Wattal

David

Munir

Christine

(2010). Web 2.0 and politics: The 2008 U.S. Presidential election and an E-politics research agenda. MIS Quarterly, 34(4), 669–688. https://doi.org/10.2307/25750700

28.

Weiser

Eliza

S.-B.

Dominique

Anne

(2020). Mail voting: What has changed in 2020. Brennan center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mail-voting-what-has-changed-2020 (Accessed August 23, 2022).

29.

Woodward

Robert

(2021). Peril. Simon & Schuster.

30.

Yurieff

Fung

O’Sullivan

(2021). Parler: Everything you need to know about the banned conservative social media platform. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/10/tech/what-is-parler/index.html (Accessed August 23, 2022).