Minority Opposition and Asymmetric Parties? Senators’ Partisan Rhetoric on Twitter

• Author: Annelise Russell
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920921239
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920921239

Political Research Quarterly

2021, Vol. 74(3) 615 –627

© 2020 University of Utah

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1065912920921239

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Article

The U.S. Senate was once thought to be above majority

party politics, but senators’ increased messaging suggests

party signals and political rhetoric are the norm (Gelman

2019; Lee 2009; Russell 2018a; Theriault 2013). But not

all senators are playing the same political game. Some

elected officials are partisan warriors, chastising, and

attacking partisan opponents (Lee 2009; Theriault 2013),

others are party loyalists who champion the party brand

in light of constituent or electoral pressures (Aldrich

1995; Carson, Crespin, and Madonna 2014), and some

lawmakers avoid the costs of party politics as much as

politically feasible (Carson et al. 2010). The choices that

senators make about the role of party politics in their

political brand have implications for electability (Carson

et al. 2010), negotiation and compromise (Binder and Lee

2015), and political power within the institution (Fenno

1978). These choices now play out in senators’ public

communication, as the normalization of social media

platforms, like Twitter, offers a new and useful tool for

explaining partisan priorities in Congress.

Previous studies of congressional communication and

partisanship offer two explanations for why some sena-

tors are more likely to communicate partisan cues, both

targeting the other party and bolstering their own party’s

success on Twitter. One line of research offers an institu-

tional explanation that lawmakers in the minority are

better positioned to use strategic communication (Groeling

2010; Kousser 2019; Maltzman and Sigelman 1996;

Morris 2001). And not only do minority members com-

municate more frequently (Maltzman and Sigelman 1996),

they use those communications for partisan rhetoric—

relying on partisan messaging strategies to tarnish the

majority party’s reputation (Lee 2009; Morris 2001). A

second explanation stems from the asymmetric patterns

of polarization in Congress, suggesting that Republicans

have moved further to the right and thus their communi-

cation reflects this hyper-partisan shift (Hacker and

Pierson 2006; Russell 2018a).

Tweets have changed business in Congress to incen-

tivize rapid responses, limiting time for detail-oriented

policies, and, most importantly, enabling connections to

voters (Tromble 2018). Lawmakers are making an impor-

tant connection to the public on social media, and that

relationship is framed by lawmakers’ political rhetoric.

Senators’ choices about how and when to make partisan

appeals to a digital constituency will shape not only a

921239PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920921239Political Research QuarterlyRussell

research-article2020

1University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA

Corresponding Author:

Annelise Russell, University of Kentucky, Patterson Office Tower

417, Lexington, KY 40503, USA.

Email: Arussell@uky.edu

Minority Opposition and Asymmetric

Parties? Senators’ Partisan

Rhetoric on Twitter

Annelise Russell1

Abstract

Hyper-partisanship in Congress extends from the legislative process into lawmakers’ strategic communications, but

some partisans are leaning into the political rhetoric. Previous research offers competing explanations for this partisan

rhetoric—one ascribed to Republicans’ asymmetric record of heightened partisan politics and another to minority

party status within Congress. I investigate these different explanations in the context of congressional social media

activity to examine how these competing theories of partisan rhetoric work when explicitly considering the use

of partisan labels. I examine senators’ tweets over three Congresses and find support for an asymmetric model of

partisan rhetoric; however, minority status relative to the White House and leadership roles bolster this effect. In

addition, ideological extremism may explain senators’ willingness to use partisan communication to attack political

opponents on social media. These findings expand the scope of existing theories of partisan communication and

broadly speak to the intersection of power and party.

Keywords

Congress, Twitter, polarization, asymmetry, partisanship