Policy criticism
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Oct 16, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy criticism; policy discussion; Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues; Health · Source
89%
of State Senate Republicans score to the left of Nichols on the CSIP scale
CSIP score +0.68 (approximate range +0.65 to +0.71, which understates the uncertainty); negative is left of the scale’s centre, positive right. From 426 donors and 1,178 roll calls.
CSIP places every official on one left–right scale estimated from roll-call votes, campaign donations and the text of statements; 0 is the centre of the scale, not a definition of moderate. The share says where Nichols sits among State Senate Republicans, not how far from the centre.
At a glance
6 measures against State Senate Republicans. 18% of Nichols’s statements discuss policy, in the bottom quarter of State Senate Republicans (average 37%). 5.7% of Nichols’s statements claim credit, in the bottom half of State Senate Republicans (average 15%).
The measures on which Nichols 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.
CSIP ideology
+0.68
More conservative than 89% of State Senate Republicans · ± 0.03
Attendance
99.7%
Idaho Senate average 97.3% · ranks 5th of 35 · 791 roll calls
Policy discussion
18%
State Senate Republicans average 37% · ranks 293rd of 354
Credit claiming
5.7%
State Senate Republicans average 15% · ranks 265th of 354
Party unity
95.3%
Idaho Senate average 87% · ranks 9th of 35 · 144 votes against the majority of Idaho Senate Republicans
Bipartisanship
0.3%
State Senate Republicans average 2.3% · ranks 260th of 354
Peer group: State Senate Republicans. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Nichols, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Nichols is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Nichols says
Nichols stresses bipartisanship less than 73% of State Senate Republicans. Bipartisanship in 0.3% of 2,462 statements, against 2.3% for the average State Senate Republican; 260th of 354.
An AI model reads each of Nichols’s 2,462 statements in the ID 2025–26 session (2,462 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 ID 2025–26 session
0%80%
Nichols
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion451 statements
18%
37%
293rd of 354
Credit claiming141 statements
6%
15%
265th of 354
Policy criticism83 statements
3%
9%
234th of 354
Personal attacks23 statements
1%
2%
144th of 354
Bipartisanship7 statements
0%
2%
260th of 354
Show the data
| Row | Nichols | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 18% | 37% |
| Credit claiming | 6% | 15% |
| Policy criticism | 3% | 9% |
| Personal attacks | 1% | 2% |
| Bipartisanship | 0% | 2% |
2,462
statements classified
2,462 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 2,462 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Nichols; the thin grey bar is the average State Senate Republicans. A longer thick bar means Nichols does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Nichols used extreme labels in 0.7% of statements, below the peer average. 18 statements, most often aimed at Prop 1; peers 1.3%.
- “MAGA”4
- “extreme”3
- “woke”3
Who gets the labels
Targets named alongside an extreme label, by number of statements
- Prop 12
- woke2
- boy scouts1
- health-care1
- liberal left1
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 ID 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Column | Statements | Personal attacks | Policy criticism | Policy discussion | Bipartisanship | Credit claiming | Extreme labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan ’25 | 150 | 2.0% | 4.7% | 19.3% | 0.0% | 6.7% | 1.3% |
| Feb ’25 | 107 | 2.8% | 2.8% | 21.5% | 0.0% | 17.8% | 0.9% |
| Mar ’25 | 148 | 0.0% | 4.7% | 22.3% | 0.7% | 13.5% | 0.0% |
| Apr ’25 | 184 | 1.6% | 3.8% | 16.3% | 0.5% | 8.2% | 0.5% |
| May ’25 | 124 | 2.4% | 6.5% | 15.3% | 0.8% | 2.4% | 0.8% |
| Jun ’25 | 121 | 0.0% | 3.3% | 12.4% | 0.0% | 2.5% | 0.8% |
| Jul ’25 | 160 | 0.6% | 2.5% | 15.6% | 0.0% | 4.4% | 0.6% |
| Aug ’25 | 159 | 0.6% | 3.8% | 11.9% | 0.6% | 3.8% | 1.3% |
| Sep ’25 | 212 | 0.5% | 2.8% | 6.1% | 0.5% | 1.4% | 0.5% |
| Oct ’25 | 91 | 0.0% | 4.4% | 13.2% | 0.0% | 3.3% | 0.0% |
| Nov ’25 | 153 | 1.3% | 3.9% | 13.1% | 0.7% | 3.3% | 2.0% |
| Dec ’25 | 109 | 0.0% | 0.9% | 13.8% | 0.0% | 0.9% | 0.9% |
| Jan ’26 | 130 | 0.8% | 3.1% | 30.0% | 0.0% | 4.6% | 0.0% |
| Feb ’26 | 62 | 0.0% | 1.6% | 22.6% | 0.0% | 12.9% | 0.0% |
| Mar ’26 | 55 | 0.0% | 1.8% | 12.7% | 0.0% | 18.2% | 0.0% |
| Apr ’26 | 52 | 0.0% | 3.9% | 26.9% | 0.0% | 11.5% | 1.9% |
| May ’26 | 62 | 1.6% | 3.2% | 17.7% | 1.6% | 1.6% | 0.0% |
| Jun ’26 | 58 | 0.0% | 1.7% | 13.8% | 0.0% | 8.6% | 0.0% |
| Jul ’26 | 86 | 1.2% | 3.5% | 31.4% | 0.0% | 3.5% | 1.2% |
| Aug ’26 | 85 | 2.4% | 0.0% | 30.6% | 0.0% | 4.7% | 1.2% |
| Sep ’26 | 70 | 1.4% | 5.7% | 38.6% | 0.0% | 2.9% | 1.4% |
| Oct ’26 | 84 | 0.0% | 2.4% | 29.8% | 0.0% | 1.2% | 0.0% |
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 ID 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%.
In Nichols’s words
Real statements from the classifier’s example set, with the labels it assigned
Bipartisanship
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
May 5, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy discussion; bipartisanship; Environmental Protection; Health · Source
Extreme label
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Sep 16, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · extreme label “extreme” aimed at Prop 1 · 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 · Crime and Law Enforcement · Law · target: ClancySource
Posts on X (state legislators)
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
personal attacks · policy discussion · Health · target: MistakesmanSource
Posts on X (state legislators)
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
personal attacks · target: InsleeSource
Posts on X (state legislators)
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
personal attacks · policy discussion · Health · target: FauciSource
Posts on X (state legislators)
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
personal attacks · target: kylenharris1234Source
All 2,462 statements
Newest first, the ID 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: 2,462 posts on X.
Policy
Education is what Nichols talks about most: 17% of policy statements, above the peer share. Peers give it 14%.
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 Nichols talks about. The bills Nichols sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Nichols talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the ID 2025–26 session
0%35%
Nichols
Peers
Education77 statements
17%
14%
Health77 statements
17%
9%
Agriculture and Food61 statements
14%
6%
Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues57 statements
13%
5%
Government Operations and Politics54 statements
12%
17%
Show the data
| Row | Nichols | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Education | 17% | 14% |
| Health | 17% | 9% |
| Agriculture and Food | 14% | 6% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 13% | 5% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 12% | 17% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Nichols’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.
No sponsored or cosponsored bills with a policy area in this window.
What agreement means, and what it doesn’t
Agreement is 1 minus the distance between the two distributions (Jensen–Shannon): 1 means Nichols legislates on exactly the areas Nichols 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 Nichols sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Nichols sits at +0.68 on the CSIP scale, right of 0, more conservative than 89% of State Senate Republicans. Approximate range +0.65 to +0.71, which understates the uncertainty; from 426 donors and 1,178 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”.
+0.68
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range +0.65 to +0.71. From 426 donors and 1,178 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Nichols, 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 Nichols’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 Nichols sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State Senate Republicans1,083 · median +0.4
Idaho Senate35 · median +0.1
All State Senate1,909 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Nichols |
|---|---|---|---|
| State Senate Republicans | 1083 | +0.4 | 89% |
| Idaho Senate | 35 | +0.1 | 86% |
| All State Senate | 1909 | +0.1 | 94% |
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 Nichols 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 Nichols.
Money
Nichols reported $26.5K in the 2026 cycle, below the State Senate Republicans’ median of $46.2K. State filings report no small-donation total. 92% of itemized individual money came from Idaho.
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.
$26.5K
itemized in the 2026 cycle
From 99 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)67 squares$17.7K
- PACs and other committees29 squares$7,850
- Party committees4 squares$1,000
Show the data
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individuals (itemized) | $17.7K | 66.6% |
| PACs and other committees | $7,850 | 29.6% |
| Party committees | $1,000 | 3.8% |
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 | $15.7K |
| 2022 cycle | $35.8K |
| 2024 cycle | $48.5K |
| 2026 cycle | $26.5K |
Top donor states, 2026
Itemized contributions by donor state. 92% came from Idaho.
- Idaho$16.2K
- Pennsylvania$1,000
- New Jersey$400
- Virginia$25
- California$10
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 |
|---|---|
| Idaho | $16.2K |
| Pennsylvania | $1,000 |
| New Jersey | $400 |
| Virginia | $25 |
| California | $10 |
| Alaska | No data |
| Maine | No data |
| Vermont | No data |
| New Hampshire | No data |
| Washington | 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 |
| Connecticut | No data |
| Utah | No data |
| Colorado | No data |
| Nebraska | No data |
| Missouri | No data |
| Kentucky | No data |
| West Virginia | No data |
| Maryland | No data |
| Delaware | 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 |
99
itemized donors
People who gave more than $200
92%
from Idaho
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 Idaho. 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.
- MOYLE, MIKE$2,000
- IDAHO FARM BUREAU FEDERATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE$1,000
- SENATE REPUBLICAN PAC OF IDAHO$1,000
- REPUBLIC SERVICES/AMALGAMATED SUGAR COMPANY PAC$700
- GEM STATE LEGACY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE$500
Top employers
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
No employers reported.
Aggregates only. Individual donors are never named.
Votes
Nichols voted with the majority of Idaho Senate Republicans on 95.3% of party-line votes and missed 0.2% of 791 roll calls. Idaho Senate on average: 87% party unity, 97.3% attendance. Across all roll calls, Nichols voted against the majority of Idaho Senate Republicans 144 times.
791 roll calls Nichols could vote on in the ID 2025–26 session, compared with Idaho Senate. 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 Nichols voted with the majority of Idaho Senate Republicans. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
144
votes against the majority of Idaho Senate Republicans
Party unity 95.3%, Idaho Senate average 87%, ranks 9th of 35. 791 roll calls in the ID 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Nichols, the thin grey bar the Idaho Senate average. The scale runs from 80% to 100% to show the gap.
80%100%
Nichols
Peers
Rank
Attendance
99.7%
97.3%
5th of 35
Party unity
95.3%
87%
9th of 35
Show the data
| Row | Nichols | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 99.7% | 97.3% |
| Party unity | 95.3% | 87% |
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 ID 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2, 2026 | H 974 APPROPRIATIONS – IDAHO STATE POLICE – Relates to the appropriation to the Idaho State Police for fiscal year 2027. Rules Suspended (2/3 Vote Read in full as required) – Read third time in full – | Yea | With majority | pass | D 4–0 · R 29–0Democrats 4 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 29 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Apr 2, 2026 | H 972 APPROPRIATIONS – HEALTH AND WELFARE – DIVISION OF WELFARE – Relates to the appropriation to the Department of Health and Welfare for fiscal year 2027. Rules Suspended (2/3 Vote Read in full as required) – Read third time in full – | Nay | Against majority | pass | D 4–0 · R 21–8Democrats 4 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 21 yea, 8 nay | became law · party crossover |
| Apr 2, 2026 | H 973 APPROPRIATIONS – MILITARY DIVISION – Relates to the appropriation to the Military Division for fiscal year 2026. Rules Suspended (2/3 Vote Read in full as required) – Read third time in full – | Yea | With majority | pass | D 5–0 · R 24–2Democrats 5 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 24 yea, 2 nay | became law |
| Apr 2, 2026 | H 959 TAXATION – Amends and adds to existing law to provide for an initiative petition to raise or lower the property tax budgets for fire protection districts and ambulance service districts and to revise provisions regarding certain property tax budget limits. Rules Suspended (2/3 Vote Read in full as required) – Read third time in full – | Yea | With majority | pass | D 4–0 · R 29–0Democrats 4 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 29 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Apr 2, 2026 | H 896 SPECIAL PROCEEDINGS – Adds to existing law to establish provisions regarding compliance with the law. Read third time in full – | Nay | With majority | fail | D 0–6 · R 8–21Democrats 0 yea, 6 nay; Republicans 8 yea, 21 nay | party crossover |
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 Nichols most often
- Doug OkuniewiczR782 shared votes92%
- Brian LenneyR692 shared votes91%
- Ben ToewsR762 shared votes91%
- Josh KeyserR773 shared votes90%
- Phil HartR761 shared votes89%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Nichols least often
- Melissa WintrowD779 shared votes60%
- Ron TaylorD771 shared votes62%
- Carrie SemmelrothD730 shared votes63%
- Ali RabeD427 shared votes63%
- James RuchtiD717 shared votes63%
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
ID 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
No bills for the ID 2025–26 session.No sponsored or cosponsored bills are recorded for this official in this time window.
Online
A site that changed 1 time in 90 days. Nichols’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Nichols’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 Nichols posts with a vision model.
Websites
- 1
pages crawled
1changes in 90 days
- 11
pages crawled
8changes 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 Nichols posted
No images from Nichols’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
No transcribed state floor speeches are matched to this legislator yet.
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 Nichols 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
- 846c0e7d-ec02-4f49-afb9-3604dd27da98
- Open States
- ocd-person/846c0e7d-ec02-4f49-afb9-3604dd27da98
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