Personal attacks
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Sep 12, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · personal attacks; target: Ellen Read · Source
488
votes against the majority of New Hampshire House Republicans
Party unity 6.7%, the lowest of 381 in the New Hampshire House (average 95.3%). 557 roll calls in the NH 2025–26 session.
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 Ploszaj voted with the majority of New Hampshire House Republicans; it is ranked within the New Hampshire House. The count covers every roll call where Ploszaj voted opposite that majority.
At a glance
6 measures against State House Republicans. 10% of Ploszaj’s statements use an extreme label, 7.3 times the State House Republican average of 1.4%. 1.0% of Ploszaj’s statements claim credit, in the bottom tenth of State House Republicans (average 13%).
The measures on which Ploszaj sits furthest from the middle of State House Republicans, each against the same group, with the CSIP score when there is one. Every number is explained in its own section below.
Party unity
6.7%
New Hampshire House average 95.3% · ranks 381st of 381 · 488 votes against the majority of New Hampshire House Republicans
Extreme labels
10%
State House Republicans average 1.4% · ranks 9th of 791
Credit claiming
1.0%
State House Republicans average 13% · ranks 713th of 791
Attendance
99.8%
New Hampshire House average 89% · ranks 53rd of 382 · 557 roll calls
CSIP ideology
+0.14
More liberal than 83% of State House Republicans · ± 0.02
Bipartisanship
1.6%
State House Republicans average 1.8% · ranks 308th of 791
Peer group: State House Republicans. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Ploszaj, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Ploszaj is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Ploszaj says
Ploszaj claims credit less than 90% of State House Republicans. Credit claiming in 1.0% of 306 statements, against 13% for the average State House Republican; 713th of 791.
An AI model reads each of Ploszaj’s 306 statements in the NH 2025–26 session (306 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 Republicans and ranked among them.
Kinds of statement
Share of statements carrying each label, the NH 2025–26 session
0%80%
Ploszaj
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion85 statements
28%
32%
441st of 791
Policy criticism17 statements
6%
9%
429th of 791
Bipartisanship5 statements
2%
2%
308th of 791
Credit claiming3 statements
1%
13%
713th of 791
Personal attacks1 statements
0%
3%
475th of 791
Show the data
| Row | Ploszaj | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 28% | 32% |
| Policy criticism | 6% | 9% |
| Bipartisanship | 2% | 2% |
| Credit claiming | 1% | 13% |
| Personal attacks | 0% | 3% |
306
statements classified
306 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 306 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Ploszaj; the thin grey bar is the average State House Republicans. A longer thick bar means Ploszaj does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Ploszaj used extreme labels in 10% of statements, 7.3 times the peer average. 32 statements, most often aimed at Marxists; peers 1.4%.
- “communist”8
- “MAGA”2
- “far left”1
- “fascist”1
Who gets the labels
Targets named alongside an extreme label, by number of statements
- Marxists4
- Democrats3
- Marxist3
- Communists2
- NH Dems2
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 NH 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Column | Statements | Personal attacks | Policy criticism | Policy discussion | Bipartisanship | Credit claiming | Extreme labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan ’25 | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.0% | 0.0% | 20.0% |
| Feb ’25 | 5 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Mar ’25 | 3 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Apr ’25 | 1 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| May ’25 | 7 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Jun ’25 | 9 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Jul ’25 | 6 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Aug ’25 | 7 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Sep ’25 | 15 | 6.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.7% | 0.0% | 6.7% |
| Oct ’25 | 21 | 0.0% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 14.3% |
| Nov ’25 | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.0% |
| Dec ’25 | 32 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 43.8% | 3.1% | 6.3% | 6.3% |
| Jan ’26 | 19 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 42.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Feb ’26 | 11 | 0.0% | 9.1% | 9.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 36.4% |
| Mar ’26 | 8 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Apr ’26 | 4 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| May ’26 | 30 | 0.0% | 16.7% | 40.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.7% |
| Jun ’26 | 21 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.8% | 0.0% | 42.9% |
| Jul ’26 | 36 | 0.0% | 2.8% | 44.4% | 2.8% | 0.0% | 5.6% |
| Aug ’26 | 13 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 53.8% | 0.0% | 7.7% | 7.7% |
| Sep ’26 | 28 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 39.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.6% |
| Oct ’26 | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 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 NH 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%. 9 months are hatched here.
In Ploszaj’s words
Real statements from the classifier’s example set, with the labels it assigned
Credit claiming
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Aug 15, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy discussion; credit claiming; Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues; Economics and Public Finance; Government Operations and Politics · Source
Extreme label
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Sep 12, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · extreme label “communist” aimed at NH legislators · 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 · target: Ellen ReadSource
All 306 statements
Newest first, the NH 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: 306 posts on X.
Policy
Government Operations and Politics is what Ploszaj talks about most: 41% of policy statements, 2.3 times the peer share. Peers give it 18%. 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 Ploszaj talks about. The bills Ploszaj sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Ploszaj talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the NH 2025–26 session
0%55%
Ploszaj
Peers
Government Operations and Politics35 statements
41%
18%
Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues20 statements
24%
6%
Crime and Law Enforcement10 statements
12%
11%
Law10 statements
12%
3%
Taxation7 statements
8%
8%
Show the data
| Row | Ploszaj | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Government Operations and Politics | 41% | 18% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 24% | 6% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 12% | 11% |
| Law | 12% | 3% |
| Taxation | 8% | 8% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Ploszaj’s policy statements in an area; the thin grey bar is the average share for State House 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 55%. Grey ticks are the State House Republicans averages.
Show the data
| Area | Talks about | State House Republicans, talks about | Legislates on | State House Republicans, legislates on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government Operations and Politics | 41% | 18% | 0% | 12% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 24% | 6% | 0% | 4% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 12% | 11% | 0% | 11% |
| Law | 12% | 3% | 25% | 3% |
| Taxation | 8% | 8% | 0% | 11% |
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 Ploszaj legislates on exactly the areas Ploszaj 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 Ploszaj sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Ploszaj sits at +0.14 on the CSIP scale, right of 0, more liberal than 83% of State House Republicans. Approximate range +0.12 to +0.17, which understates the uncertainty; from 0 donors and 898 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”.
+0.14
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range +0.12 to +0.17. From 0 donors and 898 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Ploszaj, 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 Ploszaj’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 Ploszaj sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State House Republicans2,917 · median +0.4
New Hampshire House382 · median 0.0
All State House5,324 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Ploszaj |
|---|---|---|---|
| State House Republicans | 2917 | +0.4 | 17% |
| New Hampshire House | 382 | 0.0 | 76% |
| All State House | 5324 | +0.1 | 54% |
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 Ploszaj 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 Ploszaj.
Money
No campaign-finance data.No campaign-finance records are matched to this official.
Votes
Ploszaj voted with the majority of New Hampshire House Republicans on 6.7% of party-line votes and missed 0.2% of 557 roll calls. New Hampshire House on average: 95.3% party unity, 89% attendance. Across all roll calls, Ploszaj voted against the majority of New Hampshire House Republicans 488 times.
557 roll calls Ploszaj could vote on in the NH 2025–26 session, compared with New Hampshire 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 Ploszaj voted with the majority of New Hampshire House Republicans. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
488
votes against the majority of New Hampshire House Republicans
Party unity 6.7%, New Hampshire House average 95.3%, ranks 381st of 381. 557 roll calls in the NH 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Ploszaj, the thin grey bar the New Hampshire House average. The scale runs from 0% to 100% to show the gap.
0%100%
Ploszaj
Peers
Rank
Attendance
99.8%
89%
53rd of 382
Party unity
6.7%
95.3%
381st of 381
Show the data
| Row | Ploszaj | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 99.8% | 89% |
| Party unity | 6.7% | 95.3% |
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 NH 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 19, 2026 | HB 2026 relative to the state 10-year transportation improvement plan; relative to toll rate adjustments and periodic toll reviews for the New Hampshire turnpike system to support the 2027-2036 ten-year transportation plan; and relative to reconstruction of the Gregg Mill Road Bridge in the town of New Bost Veto Override | Yea | With majority | pass | D 143–0 · R 148–25 · I 1–0Democrats 143 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 148 yea, 25 nay; Independents 1 yea, 0 nay | party crossover |
| Aug 19, 2026 | HB 1358 establishing a commission to study transitioning all public schools to public charter schools. Veto Override | Yea | Against majority | fail | D 0–143 · R 149–23 · I 1–0Democrats 0 yea, 143 nay; Republicans 149 yea, 23 nay; Independents 1 yea, 0 nay | close vote · party crossover |
| Aug 19, 2026 | Yea | Against majority | pass | D 0–139 · R 161–9 · I 1–0Democrats 0 yea, 139 nay; Republicans 161 yea, 9 nay; Independents 1 yea, 0 nay | close vote | |
| Aug 19, 2026 | Yea | Against majority | pass | D 0–142 · R 158–13 · I 1–0Democrats 0 yea, 142 nay; Republicans 158 yea, 13 nay; Independents 1 yea, 0 nay | close vote | |
| Aug 19, 2026 | HB 1726 relative to the sale of surplus state-owned land and establishing a commission to study the sale of state-owned property. Veto Override | Yea | Against majority | fail | D 2–135 · R 98–71 · I 1–0Democrats 2 yea, 135 nay; Republicans 98 yea, 71 nay; Independents 1 yea, 0 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 Ploszaj most often
- Shane SiroisR516 shared votes94%
- Mike BelcherR519 shared votes93%
- Rick DevoidR549 shared votes93%
- Donald SelbyR412 shared votes93%
- John LeavittR326 shared votes93%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Ploszaj least often
- Bill DolanD270 shared votes10%
- Seth MillerD477 shared votes10%
- Suraj BudathokiD484 shared votes11%
- Eric GallagerD548 shared votes11%
- John StoneD360 shared votes11%
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
NH 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
Ploszaj sponsored 0 bills in the NH 2025–26 session; none became law. Cosponsored 4 others.
The bills Ploszaj sponsored and cosponsored in the NH 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 NH 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Role | Introduced | In committee | Passed one chamber | Passed both chambers | Became law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cosponsored | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
How to read the blocks
Ink blocks are bills Ploszaj sponsored, ochre blocks bills Ploszaj cosponsored; the figure above each block is the count. Most bills in any legislature never leave committee, so a short staircase is the norm.
No effectiveness score.Too few sponsored bills to score (at least 5 are needed).
Cosponsorship partners
Colleagues who most often cosponsor with Ploszaj, by number of shared bills in the NH 2025–26 session; the square shows their party.
- Kelley Potenza3
- Susan DeRoy2
- Barbara Comtois2
- Judy Aron2
- Matt Sabourin dit Choinière2
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 Ploszaj’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 1743 | requiring disclosure of radiation levels emitted by smart meters. | Cosponsor | Dec 17, 2025 | In committee | Energy(model) | Inexpedient to Legislate: MA VV 02/19/2026 HJ 5 P. 31 Feb 19, 2026 |
| HB 1509 | relative to judicial immunity and permitting civil actions against judicial officers for certain criminal bail decisions. | Cosponsor | Dec 10, 2025 | In committee | Law(model) | Inexpedient to Legislate: MA VV 02/12/2026 HJ 4 P. 7 Feb 12, 2026 |
| HB 1128 | restricting the use of weather modification technologies to declared emergencies. | Cosponsor | Dec 1, 2025 | Passed one chamber | Environmental Protection(model) | Pending Motion Committee Amendment # 2026-1839s; 05/14/2026; SJ 12 May 14, 2026 |
| HB 764 | prohibiting the intentional release of polluting emissions, including cloud seeding, weather modification, excessive electromagnetic radio frequency, and microwave radiation and making penalties for violation of such prohibition. | Cosponsor | Jan 23, 2025 | In committee | Environmental Protection(model) | Remove from Table (Rep. Potenza): MF DV 114-231 03/13/2025 HJ 8 P. 95 Mar 13, 2025 |
Online
A site that changed 1 time in 90 days. Ploszaj’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Ploszaj’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 Ploszaj posts with a vision model.
Websites
Official site
www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/member.aspx?member=408962Last crawled Oct 1, 2026
1pages crawled
1changes in 90 days
- 11
pages crawled
13changes 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 Ploszaj posted
No images from Ploszaj’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 Ploszaj is most unusual among State House 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
- 8f685697-5fb0-4966-8cd0-ad3059650f8d
- Open States
- ocd-person/8f685697-5fb0-4966-8cd0-ad3059650f8d
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