Policy criticism
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Aug 1, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy criticism; policy discussion; Education · Source
91%
of State Senate Republicans score to the left of Koelker on the CSIP scale
CSIP score +0.71 (approximate range +0.65 to +0.77, which understates the uncertainty); negative is left of the scale’s centre, positive right. From 304 donors and 914 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 Koelker sits among State Senate Republicans, not how far from the centre.
At a glance
6 measures against State Senate Republicans. 25% of the 8 bills Koelker sponsored got out of committee, in the top tenth of the Iowa Senate. 85% of Koelker’s itemized money in the 2026 cycle came from Iowa, in the bottom quarter of State Senate Republicans.
The measures on which Koelker 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
+0.71
More conservative than 91% of State Senate Republicans · ± 0.06
Out of committee
25%
Iowa Senate average 11% · ranks 5th of 48
From Iowa, 2026
85%
Of itemized individual dollars · ranks 648th of 860 State Senate Republicans
Party unity
99.4%
Iowa Senate average 95.7% · ranks 13th of 49 · 1 votes against the majority of Iowa Senate Republicans
Attendance
94.0%
Iowa Senate average 93.9% · ranks 34th of 49 · 589 roll calls
Itemized, 2026
$48.5K
State Senate Republicans’ median $46.2K · ranks 459th of 936
Peer group: State Senate Republicans. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Koelker, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Koelker is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Koelker says
Koelker attacks opponents personally less than 76% of State Senate Republicans. Personal attacks in 0% of 28 statements, against 2.3% for the average State Senate Republican; 272nd of 354.
An AI model reads each of Koelker’s 28 statements in the IA 2025–26 session (28 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 IA 2025–26 session
0%80%
Koelker
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion4 statements
14%
37%
314th of 354
Policy criticism1 statements
4%
9%
227th of 354
Bipartisanship1 statements
4%
2%
79th of 354
Credit claiming1 statements
4%
15%
289th of 354
Personal attacks0 statements
0%
2%
272nd of 354
Show the data
| Row | Koelker | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 14% | 37% |
| Policy criticism | 4% | 9% |
| Bipartisanship | 4% | 2% |
| Credit claiming | 4% | 15% |
| Personal attacks | 0% | 2% |
28
statements classified
28 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 28 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Koelker; the thin grey bar is the average State Senate Republicans. A longer thick bar means Koelker does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Koelker used extreme labels in 3.6% of statements, 2.8 times the peer average. 1 statement, most often aimed at JoshuaAtLarge; peers 1.3%.
- “extreme”1
Who gets the labels
Targets named alongside an extreme label, by number of statements
- JoshuaAtLarge1
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 IA 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 IA 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; 10 of them have no statements.
In Koelker’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.
Nov 22, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · credit claiming · Source
Extreme label
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Sep 4, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · extreme label “extreme” aimed at JoshuaAtLarge · 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.
No statements in this category in this window.
All 28 statements
Newest first, the IA 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: 28 posts on X.
Policy
Agriculture and Food is what Koelker talks about most: 25% of policy statements, 4.0 times the peer share. Peers give it 6.2%. 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 Koelker talks about. The bills Koelker sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Koelker talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the IA 2025–26 session
0%35%
Koelker
Peers
Agriculture and Food1 statements
25%
6%
Education1 statements
25%
14%
Government Operations and Politics1 statements
25%
17%
Transportation and Public Works1 statements
25%
6%
Armed Forces and National Security0 statements
0%
6%
Show the data
| Row | Koelker | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food | 25% | 6% |
| Education | 25% | 14% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 25% | 17% |
| Transportation and Public Works | 25% | 6% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 0% | 6% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Koelker’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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food | 25% | 6% | 0% | 3% |
| Education | 25% | 14% | 0% | 10% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 25% | 17% | 0% | 12% |
| Transportation and Public Works | 25% | 6% | 14% | 6% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 0% | 6% | 14% | 2% |
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 Koelker legislates on exactly the areas Koelker 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 Koelker sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Koelker sits at +0.71 on the CSIP scale, right of 0, more conservative than 91% of State Senate Republicans. Approximate range +0.65 to +0.77, which understates the uncertainty; from 304 donors and 914 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”.
+0.71
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range +0.65 to +0.77. From 304 donors and 914 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Koelker, 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 Koelker’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 Koelker sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State Senate Republicans1,083 · median +0.4
Iowa Senate49 · median +0.4
All State Senate1,909 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Koelker |
|---|---|---|---|
| State Senate Republicans | 1083 | +0.4 | 91% |
| Iowa Senate | 49 | +0.4 | 84% |
| All State Senate | 1909 | +0.1 | 95% |
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 Koelker 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 Koelker.
Money
Koelker reported $48.5K in the 2026 cycle, close to the State Senate Republicans’ median of $46.2K. State filings report no small-donation total. 85% of itemized individual money came from Iowa.
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.
$48.5K
itemized in the 2026 cycle
From 32 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)17 squares$8,262
- PACs and other committees83 squares$40.3K
Show the data
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individuals (itemized) | $8,262 | 17.0% |
| PACs and other committees | $40.3K | 83.0% |
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 | $34.8K |
| 2022 cycle | $124.8K |
| 2024 cycle | $81.4K |
| 2026 cycle | $48.5K |
Top donor states, 2026
Itemized contributions by donor state. 85% came from Iowa.
- Iowa$7,012
- Texas$1,000
- Alabama$150
- Florida$100
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 |
|---|---|
| Iowa | $7,012 |
| Texas | $1,000 |
| Alabama | $150 |
| Florida | $100 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Georgia | No data |
| Hawaii | No data |
32
itemized donors
People who gave more than $200
85%
from Iowa
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 Iowa. 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.
- CEDAR RAPIDS DEVELOPMENT GROUP PAC$4,000
- RPAC IOWA - REALTORS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE$3,500
- ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF IOWA PAC$3,000
- CREDIT UNION PAC$1,500
- INDEPENDENT INSURANCE AGENTS OF IOWA PAC$1,500
Top employers
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
No employers reported.
Aggregates only. Individual donors are never named.
Votes
Koelker voted with the majority of Iowa Senate Republicans on 99.4% of party-line votes and missed 5.9% of 589 roll calls. Iowa Senate on average: 95.7% party unity, 93.9% attendance. Across all roll calls, Koelker voted against the majority of Iowa Senate Republicans 1 time.
589 roll calls Koelker could vote on in the IA 2025–26 session, compared with Iowa 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 Koelker voted with the majority of Iowa Senate Republicans. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
1
votes against the majority of Iowa Senate Republicans
Party unity 99.4%, Iowa Senate average 95.7%, ranks 13th of 49. 589 roll calls in the IA 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Koelker, the thin grey bar the Iowa Senate average. The scale runs from 80% to 100% to show the gap.
80%100%
Koelker
Peers
Rank
Attendance
94.0%
93.9%
34th of 49
Party unity
99.4%
95.7%
13th of 49
Show the data
| Row | Koelker | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 94.0% | 93.9% |
| Party unity | 99.4% | 95.7% |
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 IA 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2, 2026 | HF 2801 A bill for an act modifying the major economic growth attraction program, and including effective date provisions. Shall the bill pass? | Yea | With majority | pass | D 2–13 · R 26–6Democrats 2 yea, 13 nay; Republicans 26 yea, 6 nay | became law · party crossover |
| May 3, 2026 | SF 2472 A bill for an act relating to state and local government taxes, fees, financial authority, and budgets, by modifying property assessment provisions, divisions of revenue, and funding from the secure an advanced vision for education fund, establishing a program for first-time homebuyers, modifying an Shall the bill pass? | Yea | With majority | pass | D 11–1 · R 30–0Democrats 11 yea, 1 nay; Republicans 30 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| May 3, 2026 | HF 2788 A bill for an act relating to abortions including definitions, informed consent, dispensing of abortion-inducing drugs, and other abortion-related provisions. Shall the bill pass? | Yea | With majority | pass | D 0–11 · R 30–0Democrats 0 yea, 11 nay; Republicans 30 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| May 2, 2026 | HF 2765 A bill for an act providing for the regulation of mining, making penalties applicable, and including effective date provisions. Shall the bill pass? | Yea | With majority | pass | D 15–0 · R 31–0Democrats 15 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 31 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| May 2, 2026 | HF 1036 A bill for an act relating to human trafficking, including screening children, civil statutes of limitations, an annual stakeholder meeting and report, depositions of victims, restitution, restorative facilities and protective services, and investigation and prosecution, and including effective date Shall the bill pass? | Yea | With majority | pass | D 14–0 · R 31–0Democrats 14 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 31 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 Koelker most often
- Jeff ReichmanR518 shared votes100%
- Scott WebsterR554 shared votes100%
- Mike KlimeshR550 shared votes100%
- Amy SinclairR511 shared votes100%
- Jack WhitverR506 shared votes100%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Koelker least often
- Liz BennettD484 shared votes62%
- Art StaedD545 shared votes62%
- Herman QuirmbachD545 shared votes63%
- Janet PetersenD498 shared votes64%
- Janice WeinerD540 shared votes65%
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
IA 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
Koelker sponsored 8 bills in the IA 2025–26 session; 1 became law. Cosponsored 0 others. 25% of sponsored bills got out of committee (Iowa Senate average 11%; 5th of 48).
The bills Koelker sponsored and cosponsored in the IA 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 IA 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Role | Introduced | In committee | Passed one chamber | Passed both chambers | Became law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored | 8 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Cosponsored | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
How to read the blocks
Ink blocks are bills Koelker sponsored, ochre blocks bills Koelker cosponsored; the figure above each block is the count. Most bills in any legislature never leave committee, so a short staircase is the norm.
25%
of sponsored bills got out of committee
Iowa Senate average 11%. Ranks 5th of 48.
Cosponsorship partners
Colleagues who most often cosponsor with Koelker, by number of shared bills in the IA 2025–26 session; the square shows their party.
- Scott Webster3
- Jeff Reichman2
- Dan Dawson2
- Mark Lofgren2
- Sandy Salmon2
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 Koelker’s bills; the toggle shows more.
Bill list
Sponsored and cosponsored, with status and policy area; five are shown, the toggle shows the rest
| SF 2272 | A bill for an act providing for a veterans’ benefits and services poster for employers to display in the workplace. | Sponsor | Feb 11, 2026 | In committee | Armed Forces and National Security(model) | Subcommittee: Reichman, Costello, and Townsend. Feb 12, 2026 |
| SF 2252 | A bill for an act modifying the major economic growth attraction program to include incentivizing the building of a professional sports stadium by a national football league franchise in the state. | Sponsor | Feb 10, 2026 | In committee | Economics and Public Finance(model) | Committee report approving bill, renumbered as SF 2373. Feb 18, 2026 |
| SF 2113 | A bill for an act relating to the conduct of calendar raffles by a licensed qualified organization. | Sponsor | Jan 26, 2026 | In committee | Commerce(model) | Committee report approving bill, renumbered as SF 2396. Feb 19, 2026 |
| SR 101 | A resolution honoring Staff Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard, Staff Sergeant Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, and their families. | Sponsor | Jan 14, 2026 | Passed one chamber | Unassigned | Resolution adopted. Jan 15, 2026 |
| SF 621 | A bill for an act relating to economic development by establishing the Iowa major events and tourism program and fund, modifying the sports tourism and marketing infrastructure program, and making appropriations. | Sponsor | Apr 9, 2025 | In committee | Economics and Public Finance(model) | Committee report approving bill, renumbered as SF 640. Apr 23, 2025 |
Online
A site that has not changed in 90 days. Koelker’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Koelker’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 Koelker posts with a vision model.
Websites
- 1
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 Koelker posted
No images from Koelker’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
27 turns, Feb 25, 2026 to May 3, 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 Koelker 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
- 9b68d2a2-ead2-401e-a225-1edae68f6099
- Open States
- ocd-person/9b68d2a2-ead2-401e-a225-1edae68f6099
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