Personal attacks
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Dec 18, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · personal attacks; policy discussion; Armed Forces and National Security; target: Individuals · Source
56%
of itemized money from Arkansas donors, in the bottom tenth of State Senate Republicans
56% of the itemized money from individuals in the 2026 cycle came from donors with an address in Arkansas. Ranks 778th of 860, where 1st is the highest share. 6 itemized donors.
Only donors who give more than $200 are reported with an address, so this is the share of that itemized money from donors living in Arkansas, ranked among State Senate Republicans. Small gifts are not counted either way. Candidates running statewide or for federal office often draw more money from out of state.
At a glance
5 measures against State Senate Republicans. The policy areas Hester talks about and legislates on agree at 0.42 on a 0–1 scale, in the bottom quarter of State Senate Republicans. 55% of the 44 bills Hester sponsored got out of committee, in the bottom half of the Arkansas Senate.
The measures on which Hester sits furthest from the middle of State Senate Republicans, each against the same group, with the CSIP score when there is one. Every number is explained in its own section below.
From Arkansas, 2026
56%
Of itemized individual dollars · ranks 778th of 860 State Senate Republicans
Talk-to-bills agreement
0.42
State Senate Republicans average 0.52 · ranks 185th of 226
Out of committee
55%
Arkansas Senate average 60% · ranks 22nd of 31
Itemized, 2026
$21.2K
State Senate Republicans’ median $46.2K · ranks 628th of 936
CSIP ideology
+0.34
More liberal than 52% of State Senate Republicans · ± 0.05
Statements
60
60 posts on X
Peer group: State Senate Republicans. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Hester, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Hester is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Hester says
Hester stresses bipartisanship less than 87% of State Senate Republicans. Bipartisanship in 0% of 60 statements, against 2.3% for the average State Senate Republican; 311th of 354.
An AI model reads each of Hester’s 60 statements in the AR 2025–26 session (60 posts on X) and marks the kinds of statement it contains: a personal attack, criticism of a policy, discussion of policy, bipartisanship, credit claiming, and extreme labels. A statement can carry several. Every rate is compared with the average for State Senate Republicans and ranked among them.
Kinds of statement
Share of statements carrying each label, the AR 2025–26 session
0%80%
Hester
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion27 statements
45%
37%
129th of 354
Credit claiming9 statements
15%
15%
158th of 354
Personal attacks2 statements
3%
2%
89th of 354
Policy criticism2 statements
3%
9%
235th of 354
Bipartisanship0 statements
0%
2%
311th of 354
Show the data
| Row | Hester | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 45% | 37% |
| Credit claiming | 15% | 15% |
| Personal attacks | 3% | 2% |
| Policy criticism | 3% | 9% |
| Bipartisanship | 0% | 2% |
60
statements classified
60 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 60 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Hester; the thin grey bar is the average State Senate Republicans. A longer thick bar means Hester does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Hester used extreme labels in 1.7% of statements, above the peer average. 1 statement, most often aimed at her; peers 1.3%.
- “extreme”1
Who gets the labels
Targets named alongside an extreme label, by number of statements
- her1
What an extreme label is
Calls a politician, a party or a policy “far left”, “far right”, “MAGA”, “extreme”, “radical”, “woke”, “fascist” or “communist”. The target is who or what the label was aimed at. The lists show the five most used labels and targets; the toggle shows the rest.
Month by month
Share of statements per month, the AR 2025–26 session
No month in this window has 10 or more statements, too few to chart month by month.
How to read the strips
Each row is one kind of statement; each cell is a month, shaded against that row’s own peak (darker = closer to the peak), with the peak and the latest value written at the right. The top row counts statements. The strip covers every month of the AR 2025–26 session, the same span as the rates above, including months with no statements. A month with fewer than 10 statements is hatched, not shaded: one or two posts would swing its rate to 0% or 100%. 22 months are hatched here; 2 of them have no statements.
In Hester’s words
Real statements from the classifier’s example set, with the labels it assigned
Policy criticism
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Aug 25, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · personal attacks; policy criticism; policy discussion; credit claiming; Crime and Law Enforcement; target: Judge Fox · Source
Extreme label
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Nov 14, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · extreme label “extreme” aimed at her · Source
Examples by category
Up to five recent statements in each category
Overtly questions a named person’s character, integrity or loyalty, or calls them names. Criticising a record or a policy does not count.
Posts on X (state legislators)
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
personal attacks · policy discussion · Armed Forces and National Security · target: IndividualsSource
Posts on X (state legislators)
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
personal attacks · policy criticism · policy discussion · credit claiming · Crime and Law Enforcement · target: Judge FoxSource
All 60 statements
Newest first, the AR 2025–26 session
The full feed
Five statements at a time, newest first; filters apply to the statements loaded so far. Export saves the statements that match. Sources: 60 posts on X.
Policy
Crime and Law Enforcement is what Hester talks about most: 22% of policy statements, 1.9 times the peer share. Talk and legislation agree at 0.42 on a 0–1 scale (State Senate Republicans average 0.52; 185th of 226).
Each policy statement is tagged by the AI model with one or more of 25 policy areas from the Congressional Research Service list, so the shares say what Hester talks about. The bills Hester sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Hester talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the AR 2025–26 session
0%35%
Hester
Peers
Crime and Law Enforcement6 statements
22%
12%
Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues4 statements
15%
5%
Government Operations and Politics4 statements
15%
17%
Law4 statements
15%
4%
Armed Forces and National Security3 statements
11%
6%
Show the data
| Row | Hester | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 22% | 12% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 15% | 5% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 15% | 17% |
| Law | 15% | 4% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 11% | 6% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Hester’s policy statements in an area; the thin grey bar is the average share for State Senate Republicans. A statement counts once in each of its areas, so shares can add to more than 100%. The five largest areas are shown; the toggle shows the rest.
Talks about · legislates on
Left: share of statements by policy area. Right: share of bills. Areas in order of their share of statements; both sides run from 0 to 35%. Grey ticks are the State Senate Republicans averages.
Show the data
| Area | Talks about | State Senate Republicans, talks about | Legislates on | State Senate Republicans, legislates on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 22% | 12% | 6% | 10% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 15% | 5% | 1% | 3% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 15% | 17% | 16% | 12% |
| Law | 15% | 4% | 6% | 4% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 11% | 6% | 0% | 2% |
0.42
talk-to-bills agreement, 0 to 1
State Senate Republicans average 0.52. Ranks 185th of 226.
What agreement means, and what it doesn’t
Agreement is 1 minus the distance between the two distributions (Jensen–Shannon): 1 means Hester legislates on exactly the areas Hester talks about, in the same proportions; 0 means no overlap. It does not say whether the bills match the positions in the statements, only the subjects. Bills Hester sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Hester sits at +0.34 on the CSIP scale, right of 0, more liberal than 52% of State Senate Republicans. Approximate range +0.30 to +0.39, which understates the uncertainty; from 89 donors and 850 roll calls.
CSIP, the lab’s Common-Space Ideal Point, places every official, federal and state, on one left–right scale, estimated from roll-call votes, who gives money to whom, and the text of statements. Negative is left of 0, positive right of it; 0 is the centre of the scale, not a definition of “moderate”.
+0.34
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range +0.30 to +0.39. From 89 donors and 850 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Hester, coloured by its side of 0 (blue left, red right, deeper further out); the bar through it is the approximate range (±1.96 standard errors), which understates the uncertainty; the grey ticks below are the medians of Hester’s groups. 0 is the centre of the scale, not “moderate” by definition.
What this means, and what it doesn’t
The score summarises how an official votes, who funds them and how they talk, relative to everyone else. It does not grade positions as good or bad, and two officials with the same score can differ on any single issue. The ± range is 1.96 standard errors, which understates the uncertainty: scores whose ranges overlap may not differ at all, and even scores whose ranges do not overlap may not differ.
Where Hester sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State Senate Republicans1,083 · median +0.4
Arkansas Senate33 · median +0.2
All State Senate1,909 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Hester |
|---|---|---|---|
| State Senate Republicans | 1083 | +0.4 | 48% |
| Arkansas Senate | 33 | +0.2 | 88% |
| All State Senate | 1909 | +0.1 | 70% |
How to read the strips
Every small dot is one official on the same scale, coloured by its own score (blue left of 0, red right of 0, grey at 0, deeper further out) and spread up and down only to keep dots apart; where a group is crowded the dots overlap, and darker patches mean more officials. The large outlined dot is Hester in every row; the rule is each group’s median. The table under the figure gives the share of each group to the left of Hester.
Money
Hester reported $21.2K in the 2026 cycle, below the State Senate Republicans’ median of $46.2K. State filings report no small-donation total. 56% of itemized individual money came from Arkansas.
Campaign money from state campaign-finance filings, as aggregates only; the lab never shows an individual donor. Campaigns must report by name every person who gives them more than $200 in a cycle (“itemized”); smaller gifts are reported only as one total (“unitemized”), so donor counts, donor states, employers and occupations describe itemized donors only. State filings report no small-gift total, so these figures add up itemized contributions only.
$21.2K
itemized in the 2026 cycle
From 6 itemized donors. State Senate Republicans’ median $46.2K.
Where the money came from
Each square is one percent of itemized contributions in the 2026 cycle.
- Individuals (itemized)37 squares$7,925
- PACs and other committees63 squares$13.3K
Show the data
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individuals (itemized) | $7,925 | 37.4% |
| PACs and other committees | $13.3K | 62.6% |
What this means, and what it doesn’t
Totals say how much a campaign took in, not how it was spent, and they rise sharply when a seat is up for election; compare cycles with that in mind.
Receipts by cycle
Itemized contributions, 2020 to 2026. The grey line is the State Senate Republicans’ median for 2026.
Show the data
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2020 cycle | $195.4K |
| 2022 cycle | $59.4K |
| 2024 cycle | $246.1K |
| 2026 cycle | $21.2K |
Top donor states, 2026
Itemized contributions by donor state. 56% came from Arkansas.
- Arkansas$4,425
- Florida$3,500
Small donations
State filings report no total for small gifts.
Not reported in state filings.
Where itemized donors live
Individuals who gave more than $200, by donor state
Show the data
| State | Value |
|---|---|
| Arkansas | $4,425 |
| Florida | $3,500 |
| Alaska | No data |
| Maine | No data |
| Vermont | No data |
| New Hampshire | No data |
| Washington | No data |
| Idaho | No data |
| Montana | No data |
| North Dakota | No data |
| Minnesota | No data |
| Illinois | No data |
| Wisconsin | No data |
| Michigan | No data |
| New York | No data |
| Rhode Island | No data |
| Massachusetts | No data |
| Oregon | No data |
| Nevada | No data |
| Wyoming | No data |
| South Dakota | No data |
| Iowa | No data |
| Indiana | No data |
| Ohio | No data |
| Pennsylvania | No data |
| New Jersey | No data |
| Connecticut | No data |
| California | No data |
| Utah | No data |
| Colorado | No data |
| Nebraska | No data |
| Missouri | No data |
| Kentucky | No data |
| West Virginia | No data |
| Virginia | No data |
| Maryland | No data |
| Delaware | No data |
| Arizona | No data |
| New Mexico | No data |
| Kansas | No data |
| Tennessee | No data |
| North Carolina | No data |
| South Carolina | No data |
| District of Columbia | No data |
| Oklahoma | No data |
| Louisiana | No data |
| Mississippi | No data |
| Alabama | No data |
| Georgia | No data |
| Hawaii | No data |
| Texas | No data |
6
itemized donors
People who gave more than $200
56%
from Arkansas
Of itemized individual dollars
How to read the map
Every state the same size. Darker states gave more itemized money; hatched states had no itemized donors; the outlined state is Arkansas. Gifts of $200 or less carry no address and are left out.
Top donor occupations
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
No occupations reported.
Top committees
PAC and committee contributions, 2026 cycle.
- ARKANSAS REALTORS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE$3,500
- RAZOR PAC$3,500
- THE ARKANSAS FARM BUREAU STATE AG PAC$2,000
- OGE ENERGY CORP EMPLOYEES POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE$1,500
- ACADIA HEALTHCARE COMPANY, INC. PAC$1,000
Top employers
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
No employers reported.
Aggregates only. Individual donors are never named.
Votes
No roll-call votes for the AR 2025–26 session.No roll-call votes are recorded for this official in this time window.
Legislation
Hester sponsored 44 bills in the AR 2025–26 session; 21 became law. Cosponsored 41 others. 55% of sponsored bills got out of committee (Arkansas Senate average 60%; 22nd of 31).
The bills Hester sponsored and cosponsored in the AR 2025–26 session, from the official bill records, and how far each got: introduced, referred to or acted on in committee, passed one chamber, passed both, became law. A bill counts at every stage it has reached, so the blocks only shrink to the right.
Bills by stage
Counts for the AR 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Role | Introduced | In committee | Passed one chamber | Passed both chambers | Became law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored | 44 | 33 | 24 | 22 | 21 |
| Cosponsored | 41 | 33 | 25 | 24 | 23 |
How to read the blocks
Ink blocks are bills Hester sponsored, ochre blocks bills Hester cosponsored; the figure above each block is the count. Most bills in any legislature never leave committee, so a short staircase is the norm.
55%
of sponsored bills got out of committee
Arkansas Senate average 60%. Ranks 22nd of 31.
Cosponsorship partners
Colleagues who most often cosponsor with Hester, by number of shared bills in the AR 2025–26 session; the square shows their party.
- Brian Evans11
- Brandon Achor6
- Matthew Shepherd6
- John Maddox6
- Lee Johnson5
What this means, and what it doesn’t
The score is the share of sponsored bills that a committee reported out or a chamber passed, with at least 5 sponsored bills, ranked within the peer group. Members of the majority party and committee chairs move more bills, so the rank reflects position in the chamber as well as effort. Cosponsorship partners are the five colleagues who share the most of Hester’s bills; the toggle shows more.
Bill list
Sponsored and cosponsored, with status and policy area; five are shown, the toggle shows the rest
| SB 1 | TO REDUCE THE INCOME TAX RATES FOR INDIVIDUALS, TRUSTS, ESTATES, AND CORPORATIONS. | Cosponsor | Apr 30, 2026 | Became law | Taxation(model) | Notification that SB1 is now Act 2 May 6, 2026 |
| SMR 6 | IN RESPECTFUL MEMORY OF LEGENDARY COLLEGE FOOTBALL COACH LOUIS LEO "LOU" HOLTZ FOR HIS SERVICE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT FAYETTEVILLE, THE STATE OF ARKANSAS, AND THE GAME OF FOOTBALL. | Sponsor | Apr 28, 2026 | Introduced | Unassigned | Died in Senate at Sine Die adjournment. Apr 29, 2026 |
| SMR 4 | IN RESPECTFUL MEMORY OF REPRESENTATIVE STANLEY JACK "STAN" BERRY AND IN RECOGNITION OF HIS MANY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STATE OF ARKANSAS AND TO HIS LOCAL COMMUNITY. | Cosponsor | Apr 23, 2026 | Introduced | Unassigned | Sine Die adjournment Apr 29, 2026 |
| HB 1103 | TO INCREASE THE HOMESTEAD PROPERTY TAX CREDIT. | Cosponsor | Apr 21, 2026 | Passed both chambers | Taxation(model) | Correctly enrolled and ordered transmitted to the Governor's Office. Apr 28, 2026 |
| SR 30 | TO HONOR LOY BAILEY UPON HIS RETIREMENT FROM THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. | Sponsor | Apr 21, 2026 | Introduced | Unassigned | Sine Die adjournment Apr 29, 2026 |
Online
A site that changed 1 time in 90 days. Hester’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Hester’s official and campaign websites (weekly for Congress, monthly for the states) and keeps every page’s text, so changes can be read later; it also records social accounts and describes the images Hester posts with a vision model.
Websites
Official site
www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Legislators/Detail?member=Hester&ddBienniumSession=2021%2F2021RLast crawled Oct 1, 2026
1pages crawled
1changes in 90 days
- 0
pages crawled
0changes in 90 days
How to read the counts
“Pages crawled” is the size of the site at the last crawl; “changes in 90 days” counts pages whose text differed from the previous crawl. Sites change for many routine reasons, such as new press releases, so a high count is not by itself notable.
Social accounts
Images Hester posted
No images from Hester’s posts have been described.
About the descriptions
Written by a vision model and may be wrong. Open the post to see the original. Five are shown; the toggle shows the rest.
State floor speeches
489 turns, Jan 12, 2021 to May 6, 2026
Floor speeches
Transcribed from chamber video or captions by the lab. They are not classified for kinds of statement.
Methods and sources
How this page was made. Profile built Oct 28, 2026; site last built Oct 28, 2026. Every number on the page is computed from the sources listed here, by the same rules for every official; nothing is written by hand.
The headline
The headline is the measure on which Hester is most unusual among State Senate Republicans, chosen by one rule for every official of every party. The candidates are the rate of each kind of statement and of extreme labels, party unity, attendance, the small-donor share, the in-state share and total receipts of the latest cycle, the share of sponsored bills that got out of committee, talk-to-bills agreement, and the CSIP score’s place within the party group.
The builder ranks every measure within the same peer group the page compares it with, and writes each official’s percentile: the share of the group below the value, ties counting half, so 0.5 is the median and a value shared by many never ranks first. A measure’s score is how far that percentile sits from the median (0 in the middle, 0.5 at either end), and the highest score leads if it is above 0.25, outside the middle half of the group. Scores within 0.03 of each other are a tie, broken in this order: votes against the party majority, kinds of statement, ideology, roll calls missed, small donations, in-state money, legislation, agreement, extreme labels, receipts.
A measure counts only with at least 200 statements, 100 roll calls or 5 sponsored bills behind it and a peer group of at least 10. Two things never lead: high party unity or attendance, where most members sit, and a high rate of a kind of statement backed by fewer than 10 statements. When nothing qualifies, the headline is a neutral fact instead: statements classified, or years in office. The wording always names the direction (“in the bottom 5% of …”, “votes against the majority of …”).
Identifiers
- Profile id
- 0dee8795-58dd-48a8-980e-044d8d2ac646
- Open States
- ocd-person/0dee8795-58dd-48a8-980e-044d8d2ac646
Bulk files with the same data for every official:
Freshness of this profile’s data
- What politicians sayOct 27, 20261 days agoMembers of Congress: tweets since 2017; press releases, newsletters and floor speeches since 2022. State legislators: tweets since May 2024. Governors: tweets since January 2025. Labels from an LLM classifier.
- Roll calls (state)Oct 21, 20267 days agoOpen States floor roll calls, 2019 on (none for AK and MO).
- Bills (state)Oct 28, 2026todayOpen States bills and sponsors, 2019 on; stages from roll calls.
- Campaign money (state)no dateState campaign-finance agencies, 2019 on; aggregates only.
- Ideology (CSIP)Oct 25, 20263 days agoCommon-Space Ideal Points (CSIP), current validated run.
- WebsitesOct 25, 20263 days agoWeekly crawls of federal sites since April 2026; monthly state crawls since June 2026.
- State floor speechesOct 21, 20267 days agoState floor speech turns (published transcripts and captions), 2020 on; not LLM-classified.
How the measures work
- What politicians say
- Every post, press release, newsletter and congressional floor speech is read by a language model and marked for personal attacks, policy criticism, policy discussion, bipartisanship and credit claiming. A statement can be in several. Rates are shares of statements in the window. The methods paper.
- Extreme labels
- A statement has an extreme label when it calls a politician, party or policy “far left”, “far right”, “MAGA”, “extreme”, “radical”, “woke”, “fascist” or “communist”. The target is who the label is aimed at.
- Policy areas and agreement
- Statements and bills share 25 Congressional Research Service policy areas (state bills are assigned by a language model). Agreement is 1 − Jensen–Shannon distance between the two distributions, shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
- Ideology (CSIP)
- Common-Space Ideal Points place federal and state officials on one left–right scale, estimated jointly from roll calls, campaign contributions and the text of statements, with standard errors. Only a validated run is shown. The methods paper.
- Campaign money
- Campaigns report by name only donors who give more than $200 in a cycle; smaller gifts are reported as one total. Federal totals and the small-donor share come from the FEC’s financial summaries of each campaign committee. Donor counts, donor states, employers and occupations cover itemized donors only. State filings report no small-gift totals, so state figures are itemized only. The lab never publishes donor names.
- Votes and key votes
- Attendance, party unity and the count of votes against the majority of an official’s own party come from roll calls (Voteview for Congress, chamber records for the states). Key votes are final-passage or override votes that became law, were decided by under 10%, saw at least 10% of a party vote against its majority, or concerned one of the 25 bills most mentioned in officials’ statements.
- Peers and ranks
- Comparisons are with the same party, chamber and level (for example House Democrats); state legislators are compared within their state and chamber for votes. Every comparison names its group. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; tied values share the average of their ranks, and the percentile is the share of the group below the value, ties counting half.
America’s Political Pulse · Polarization Research Lab