Owning your message: Congressional candidates’ interactivity and issue ownership in mixed-gender campaigns

ABSTRACT

When candidates lose, they must decide which campaign strategies to keep and which to abandon if they run again. Republicans Mia Love and Scott Brown had to make this decision after losing in 2012 and running again in 2014. This study examines Love, Brown, and their Democratic opponents to assess how they changed and potentially optimized their Twitter strategies in back-to-back mixed-gender elections. Results revealed two patterns. First, textual and visual interactivity were prevalent campaign strategies. Second, effective campaign strategies incorporated issue emphases that aligned with the candidate’s party- and/or gender-based political ownership, while simultaneously complimenting the nation’s economic conditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Issue ownership
• gender
• political party
• mixed-gender elections
• Twitter
• interactivity

Excerpts of Political Issue Dictionary for WordStat

• Agriculture

  • Agricultur*, farm_bill, crop*, ag_relief, ag_polic*, ranch*, ag_dept

• Crime/Public Safety

  • Crime, law_enforcement, death_penalty, @drug not near prescription*

• Defense

  • Border_security, ISIS, ISIL, military, weapon*, troop*, national_security

• Economy

  • Econom*, *job*, deficit, *employment, recession, small_business*, tax

• Education

  • Education, student_aid, student_debt, tuition, affordable_education

• Energy

  • Oil, coal, drill*, big_oil, gas, keystone, pipeline, energy_polic*

• Environment

  • Climate_change, global_warming, pollution, emission*, EPA

• Foreign Policy

  • Foreign_policy, foreign_aid, diploma*, foreign_affair*, TPP, TPA, trade

• Health care

  • ACA, Obamacare, healthcare, insurance, presecription*, immunization*

• Immigration

  • Immigration, dream_act, undocumented, amnesty, DACA, citizenship

• LGBT Issues

  • Marriage_equality, same_sex_marriage, SSM, LGBT*, DOMA, gay, lesbian

• Other Issues

  • Campaign_finance, transportation, infrastructure, homeless, food_stamp*

• Women’s Issues

  • Birth_control, contraception, fair_pay, family_leave, prochoice, roe_v_wade

Notes

1. This study does not explore the impact of a candidate’s race or ethnicity on their communication strategies. However, it is important to note that in addition to managing conflicting ownerships, Love also had to navigate the intersectional expectations and challenges of being a Black, Republican woman, and this may have affected which issues she emphasized and her levels of interactivity. Notably, Stokes-Brown (2004) argued that African American candidates can garner higher levels of white voter support if they use deracialized issue strategies, namely focus on economic issues. This perceptive was supported by Stokes-Brown’s (2004) examination of African American candidates running for state legislatures. Roughly 87% of Utah’s 4^th congressional district is white (Ballotpedia, 2018). In addition to conflicting ownerships, Love may have also encountered conflicting strategies because according to Stokes-Brown (2004) she needed to emphasize deracialized economic issues to attract white voters, but according to Vavreck (2009) she needed to downplay the economy. Ultimately, Love had to carefully craft her campaign communications to meet all of these intersecting interests and create a desirable image.2018). In addition to conflicting ownerships, Love may have also encountered conflicting strategies because according to Stokes-Brown () she needed to emphasize deracialized economic issues to attract white voters, but according to Vavreck () she needed to downplay the economy. Ultimately, Love had to carefully craft her campaign communications to meet all of these intersecting interests and create adesirable image.

2. One indicator of the health of the economy is unemployment rates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when Obama took office in 2009 the unemployment rate was 8.3% and rose to a peak of 9.9% at the end of 2009. However, by the end of 2012, it was down to 7.9%, and at the end of 2014, it was down to 5.8%. There have been downturns within Obama’s term, e.g., decreasing median household income, but other macroeconomic indicators such as major stock indexes like the S&P 500, home prices, GDP, and industrial production have all risen since Obama took office (Zumbrun 2014), suggesting an improving economic climate during this study’s two election cycles.

3. The code used for this process is available online: https://github.com/rainersigwald/twitter_archiver.

4. When a candidate mentioned their opponent, it was not coded as present for an @mention. When a candidate retweeted an account affiliated with their campaign, it was not coded as present for a retweet, e.g., Mia Love often retweeted @MiaLovePress, the press account for her campaign. These retweets were not counted as interactivity.

5. To determine whether the candidate was interacting with family and friends, two methods were employed: First, the tweet content was used to provide context clues for who was included in the photo. For example, Doug Owens signaled that individuals in the accompanying photos were family/friends when he tweeted, “I enjoyed honoring our troops and celebrating Memorial Day with family and friends yesterday. #MemorialDay #utpol.” Conversely, Mia Love indicated that the in situ photo she included was with a company’s employees when she tweeted, “Talking to the wonderful people of CR England Trucking. A great company built by a great family. #utpol.” Second, coders reviewed images of the candidates’ spouses and children to familiarize themselves with those individuals. This visual recognition was used in conjunction with the tweet content to determine whether included individuals were family and friends.

6. While some survey work has shown that Democratic voters care more about LGBT issues (e.g., Pew, 2018), no research has consistently found that the public views Democratic politicians as more equipped to handle these issues. Therefore LGBT issues are considered unowned.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lindsey Meeks

Lindsey Meeks is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on political communication, gender, partisanship, social media, and news media.