U.S. Senators’ Tweets: The Tweets of Single-Minded Seekers of Donations

Abstract

Twitter remains an indispensable tool for U.S. senators, serving as a means of constant exposure to an audience of reporters, advocates, and copartisans. Self-presentation in Congress is more nationalized, but despite the appeal of digital constituencies, lawmakers still leverage the platform to build a strong base of local bona fides within their state. In this short article, we investigate the link between senators presenting themselves as local representatives and the donors supporting lawmakers’ electoral efforts. We hypothesize that this digital presentation facilitates dual objectives related to campaign fundraising: energizing in-state donors and attracting out-of-state donors who share a vested interest in the discussed policy issues. We test whether a localized policy emphasis resonates with local constituents and can also garner support from a broader audience beyond state borders. Using a dataset of all U.S. senators’ tweets from 2010 (reflecting Twitter’s rise in popularity) to February 2023, we systematically categorize each tweet as a localized tweet or a non-local tweet to assess the relationship between the frequency of such localized tweets and shifts in campaign donation sources, both in-state and out-of-state. In this short article, we seek to shed light on the nuanced digital strategies employed by U.S. senators to increase their prospects of reelection on a platform that is anything but local.