NYC Gazette

Researchers at New York University's Center for Social Media and Politics have released a study analyzing the ideological shifts of U.S. House candidates, particularly when facing well-funded primary challengers. The study suggests that incumbents holding safe congressional seats are more likely to shift their messaging to align with party ideologies during primaries, especially when confronted by strong financial competition.

"Social media has made it easier for primary challengers to raise money and reach voters, making strong, well-financed competition more likely for incumbents," said Maggie Macdonald, lead author of the paper published in Electoral Studies. Macdonald noted that the current polarized political environment has resulted in more safe congressional seats, often making the primary race the most significant election phase.

The research examined 2020 U.S. House campaigns involving 158 Republicans and 212 Democrats to assess if incumbents facing viable primary challengers adopted more extreme messaging ideologies compared to their earlier positions. Viability was determined by whether challengers raised $100,000 or more in contributions from within the state.

To measure these ideological movements over time, researchers analyzed Twitter posts from 2019 and 2020 using an established method developed by CSMaP. This analysis covered three periods: early 2019 at the start of the 116th Congress, the pre-primary period in 2020 leading up to elections, and the three months before the general election in November.

Megan A. Brown explained that "with our measures of candidate messaging ideology, we were able to pick up on changes in campaign behavior on Twitter over even small time periods." The results indicated that both Democratic and Republican incumbents with safe seats moved toward ideological extremes before primaries when challenged by well-funded opponents but returned closer to their original stances post-primary.

Jonathan Nagler added that once incumbents overcame a primary against a well-funded challenger, they tended to revert closer to their initial campaign ideologies expressed at the beginning of 2019. The study's findings underscore how funding dynamics can influence candidate positioning during election cycles.

The research was co-authored by NYU Julius Silver Professor Joshua A. Tucker along with Macdonald and Nagler.