Policy discussion
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Nov 8, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy discussion; Agriculture and Food · Source
73%
of itemized money from Delaware donors, in the bottom quarter of State House Democrats
73% of the itemized money from individuals in the 2026 cycle came from donors with an address in Delaware. Ranks 1643rd of 1,983, where 1st is the highest share. 66 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 Delaware, ranked among State House Democrats. 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
6 measures against State House Democrats. 91% of the 88 bills Heffernan sponsored got out of committee, in the top quarter of the Delaware House. Heffernan sits at −0.81 on the CSIP scale, more liberal than 75% of State House Democrats.
The measures on which Heffernan sits furthest from the middle of State House Democrats, each against the same group, with the CSIP score when there is one. Every number is explained in its own section below.
From Delaware, 2026
73%
Of itemized individual dollars · ranks 1643rd of 1,983 State House Democrats
Out of committee
91%
Delaware House average 80% · ranks 8th of 40
Party unity
98.9%
Delaware House average 94.5% · ranks 9th of 41 · 4 votes against the majority of Delaware House Democrats
CSIP ideology
−0.81
More liberal than 75% of State House Democrats · ± 0.07
Itemized, 2026
$24.8K
State House Democrats’ median $40.4K · ranks 1264th of 2,082
Attendance
96.0%
Delaware House average 94.5% · ranks 24th of 41 · 658 roll calls
Peer group: State House Democrats. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Heffernan, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Heffernan is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Heffernan says
Heffernan claims credit less than 95% of State House Democrats. Credit claiming in 0% of 6 statements, against 14% for the average State House Democrat; 729th of 765.
An AI model reads each of Heffernan’s 6 statements in the DE 2025–26 session (6 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 House Democrats and ranked among them.
Kinds of statement
Share of statements carrying each label, the DE 2025–26 session
0%80%
Heffernan
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion3 statements
50%
39%
227th of 765
Personal attacks0 statements
0%
3%
584th of 765
Policy criticism0 statements
0%
10%
717th of 765
Bipartisanship0 statements
0%
3%
676th of 765
Credit claiming0 statements
0%
14%
729th of 765
Show the data
| Row | Heffernan | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 50% | 39% |
| Personal attacks | 0% | 3% |
| Policy criticism | 0% | 10% |
| Bipartisanship | 0% | 3% |
| Credit claiming | 0% | 14% |
6
statements classified
6 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 6 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Heffernan; the thin grey bar is the average State House Democrats. A longer thick bar means Heffernan does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Heffernan used no extreme labels in 6 statements. The peer average is 1.0%.
No extreme labels in this window.
Who gets the labels
Targets named alongside an extreme label, by number of statements
No targets recorded.
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 DE 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 DE 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; 19 of them have no statements.
In Heffernan’s words
Real statements from the classifier’s example set, with the labels it assigned
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.
No statements in this category in this window.
All 6 statements
Newest first, the DE 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: 6 posts on X.
Policy
Agriculture and Food is what Heffernan talks about most: 100% of policy statements, 21.7 times the peer share. Peers give it 4.6%. Agreement with legislation needs at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
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 Heffernan talks about. The bills Heffernan sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Heffernan talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the DE 2025–26 session
0%100%
Heffernan
Peers
Agriculture and Food3 statements
100%
5%
Armed Forces and National Security0 statements
0%
3%
Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues0 statements
0%
10%
Commerce0 statements
0%
3%
Crime and Law Enforcement0 statements
0%
8%
Show the data
| Row | Heffernan | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food | 100% | 5% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 0% | 3% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 0% | 10% |
| Commerce | 0% | 3% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 0% | 8% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Heffernan’s policy statements in an area; the thin grey bar is the average share for State House Democrats. 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 100%. Grey ticks are the State House Democrats averages.
Show the data
| Area | Talks about | State House Democrats, talks about | Legislates on | State House Democrats, legislates on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food | 100% | 5% | 1% | 3% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 0% | 3% | 1% | 1% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 0% | 10% | 7% | 4% |
| Commerce | 0% | 3% | 3% | 4% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 0% | 8% | 6% | 9% |
No agreement score.Needs at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills in the window.
What agreement means, and what it doesn’t
Agreement is 1 minus the distance between the two distributions (Jensen–Shannon): 1 means Heffernan legislates on exactly the areas Heffernan 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 Heffernan sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Heffernan sits at −0.81 on the CSIP scale, left of 0, more liberal than 75% of State House Democrats. Approximate range −0.87 to −0.74, which understates the uncertainty; from 363 donors and 482 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”.
−0.81
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range −0.87 to −0.74. From 363 donors and 482 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Heffernan, 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 Heffernan’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 Heffernan sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State House Democrats2,392 · median −0.6
Delaware House41 · median −0.6
All State House5,324 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Heffernan |
|---|---|---|---|
| State House Democrats | 2392 | −0.6 | 25% |
| Delaware House | 41 | −0.6 | 20% |
| All State House | 5324 | +0.1 | 11% |
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 Heffernan 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 Heffernan.
Money
Heffernan reported $24.8K in the 2026 cycle, below the State House Democrats’ median of $40.4K. State filings report no small-donation total. 73% of itemized individual money came from Delaware.
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.
$24.8K
itemized in the 2026 cycle
From 66 itemized donors. State House Democrats’ median $40.4K.
Where the money came from
Each square is one percent of itemized contributions in the 2026 cycle.
- Individuals (itemized)80 squares$19.7K
- PACs and other committees20 squares$5,075
Show the data
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individuals (itemized) | $19.7K | 79.5% |
| PACs and other committees | $5,075 | 20.5% |
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 House Democrats’ median for 2026.
Show the data
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2020 cycle | $19.3K |
| 2022 cycle | $108.2K |
| 2024 cycle | $52.8K |
| 2026 cycle | $24.8K |
Top donor states, 2026
Itemized contributions by donor state. 73% came from Delaware.
- Delaware$14.4K
- Pennsylvania$4,050
- New Jersey$600
- Massachusetts$300
- California$300
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 |
|---|---|
| Delaware | $14.4K |
| Pennsylvania | $4,050 |
| New Jersey | $600 |
| Massachusetts | $300 |
| California | $300 |
| Maryland | $125 |
| 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 |
| Oregon | No data |
| Nevada | No data |
| Wyoming | No data |
| South Dakota | No data |
| Iowa | No data |
| Indiana | No data |
| Ohio | No data |
| Connecticut | No data |
| Utah | No data |
| Colorado | No data |
| Nebraska | No data |
| Missouri | No data |
| Kentucky | No data |
| West Virginia | No data |
| Virginia | No data |
| Arizona | No data |
| New Mexico | No data |
| Kansas | No data |
| Arkansas | 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 |
| Florida | No data |
66
itemized donors
People who gave more than $200
73%
from Delaware
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 Delaware. 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.
- DAN CRUCE FOR STATE SENATE$600
- PLUMBERS & PIPEFITTERS LOCAL NO. 74 PAC$600
- SHEET METAL WORKERS LU#19$600
- WILMINGTON STRONG$600
- CIVIC AFFAIRS CONSTRUCTION COUNCIL$425
Top employers
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
No employers reported.
Aggregates only. Individual donors are never named.
Votes
Heffernan voted with the majority of Delaware House Democrats on 98.9% of party-line votes and missed 3.9% of 658 roll calls. Delaware House on average: 94.5% party unity, 94.5% attendance. Across all roll calls, Heffernan voted against the majority of Delaware House Democrats 4 times.
658 roll calls Heffernan could vote on in the DE 2025–26 session, compared with Delaware House. Attendance is the share with a vote recorded. Party unity counts only party-line roll calls, where most Democrats and most Republicans voted on opposite sides, and is the share of those where Heffernan voted with the majority of Delaware House Democrats. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
4
votes against the majority of Delaware House Democrats
Party unity 98.9%, Delaware House average 94.5%, ranks 9th of 41. 658 roll calls in the DE 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Heffernan, the thin grey bar the Delaware House average. The scale runs from 80% to 100% to show the gap.
80%100%
Heffernan
Peers
Rank
Attendance
96.0%
94.5%
24th of 41
Party unity
98.9%
94.5%
9th of 41
Show the data
| Row | Heffernan | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 96.0% | 94.5% |
| Party unity | 98.9% | 94.5% |
What this means, and what it doesn’t
A missed roll call has many causes, from illness to campaigning, so attendance says how often, not why. A vote against the majority can be on procedure as well as substance, and many fall on roll calls where both parties split; the key votes below show the ones that decided something.
Key votes
25 roll calls the lab flagged as key in the DE 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 1, 2026 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 27–0 · R 14–0Democrats 27 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 14 yea, 0 nay | became law | |
| Jul 1, 2026 | HB 445 AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 26 AND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO LARGE ENERGY USE FACILITIES. Passage | Yea | With majority | pass | D 26–0 · R 0–8Democrats 26 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 0 yea, 8 nay | became law |
| Jul 1, 2026 | SB 347 AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 6 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE MEDICAL DEBT PROTECTION ACT Passage | Yea | With majority | pass | D 27–0 · R 13–0Democrats 27 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 13 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Jul 1, 2026 | SB 1 AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 16, TITLE 18, TITLE 29, AND TITLE 31 OF THE DELAWARE CODE, AND CHAPTER 237, VOLUME 83 OF THE LAWS OF DELAWARE, RELATING TO PRIMARY CARE SERVICES. Passage | Yea | With majority | pass | D 27–0 · R 14–0Democrats 27 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 14 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Jul 1, 2026 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 27–0 · R 14–0Democrats 27 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 14 yea, 0 nay | became law |
How key votes are chosen
Automatically: a final-passage or override vote where the measure became law, the margin was under 10%, at least 10% of either party voted against its majority, or the bill was among the 25 most mentioned in officials’ own statements. Up to 25 per window, most recent first; five are shown. Bars show yea on the left, nay on the right, per party.
Votes most often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Heffernan most often
- Melanie Ross LevinD632 shared votes100%
- Ed OsienskiD631 shared votes100%
- DeShanna NealD597 shared votes100%
- Cyndie RomerD629 shared votes99%
- Mara GormanD627 shared votes99%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Heffernan least often
- Jeff HilovskyR610 shared votes74%
- Rich CollinsR606 shared votes82%
- Bryan ShupeR610 shared votes82%
- Jesse VanderwendeR538 shared votes83%
- Charles PostlesR535 shared votes84%
How to read the agreement lists
The share of roll calls both members voted on where they voted the same way, among colleagues sharing at least 50 such votes. High agreement with members of the other party is common on routine votes.
Full voting record
DE 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
Heffernan sponsored 88 bills in the DE 2025–26 session; 50 became law. Cosponsored 151 others. 91% of sponsored bills got out of committee (Delaware House average 80%; 8th of 40).
The bills Heffernan sponsored and cosponsored in the DE 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 DE 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Role | Introduced | In committee | Passed one chamber | Passed both chambers | Became law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored | 88 | 87 | 80 | 74 | 50 |
| Cosponsored | 151 | 150 | 140 | 136 | 70 |
How to read the blocks
Ink blocks are bills Heffernan sponsored, ochre blocks bills Heffernan cosponsored; the figure above each block is the count. Most bills in any legislature never leave committee, so a short staircase is the norm.
91%
of sponsored bills got out of committee
Delaware House average 80%. Ranks 8th of 40.
Cosponsorship partners
Colleagues who most often cosponsor with Heffernan, by number of shared bills in the DE 2025–26 session; the square shows their party.
- Eric Morrison90
- Stephanie Hansen89
- Dave Sokola88
- Kyra Hoffner78
- Melanie Ross Levin74
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 Heffernan’s bills; the toggle shows more.
Bill list
Sponsored and cosponsored, with status and policy area; five are shown, the toggle shows the rest
| HB 500 | A BOND AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE AND CERTAIN OF ITS AUTHORITIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 2027; AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE OF GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS OF THE STATE; APPROPRIATING FUNDS FROM THE TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND; AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE OF REVENUE BONDS O | Sponsor | Jun 25, 2026 | Became law | Economics and Public Finance(model) | Line-Item Veto - See Governor's Advisory #46 Jul 6, 2026 |
| SCR 220 | DESIGNATING OCTOBER 12, 2026, AS "NATIONAL FARMER'S DAY" IN THE STATE OF DELAWARE. | Cosponsor | Jun 18, 2026 | Passed both chambers | Unassigned | Passed In House by Voice Vote Jun 23, 2026 |
| SB 314 | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 11 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, WITNESSES AND EVIDENCE. | Cosponsor | Jun 16, 2026 | Passed one chamber | Crime and Law Enforcement(model) | Reported Out of Committee (Administration) in House with 5 On Its Merits Jun 30, 2026 |
| SCR 204 | RECOGNIZING THE VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION THAT THE LIONS CLUBS INTERNATIONAL MAKES TO OUR LOCAL COMMUNITIES, AS WELL AS TO THE WORLD AT LARGE, BY DESIGNATING JUNE 12, 2026, AS "DELAWARE LIONS CLUBS DAY" IN THE STATE OF DELAWARE. | Cosponsor | Jun 11, 2026 | Passed both chambers | Unassigned | Passed In House by Voice Vote Jun 11, 2026 |
| HB 407 | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 7 AND 30 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE DELAWARE HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES CLEANUP ACT AND THE REALTY TRANSFER TAX. | Sponsor | Jun 11, 2026 | Became law | Environmental Protection(model) | Signed by Governor Aug 17, 2026 |
Online
A site that has not changed in 90 days. Heffernan’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Heffernan’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 Heffernan posts with a vision model.
Websites
Official site
housedems.delaware.gov/members/house-district-6/https://legis.delaware.gov/AssemblyMember/151/HeffernanLast crawled Oct 1, 2026
1pages 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 Heffernan posted
No images from Heffernan’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
181 turns, Jan 28, 2021 to Jun 30, 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 Heffernan is most unusual among State House Democrats, 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
- 7e631da1-ef0f-4c6f-ba17-e5ae2860dad6
- Open States
- ocd-person/7e631da1-ef0f-4c6f-ba17-e5ae2860dad6
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