Policy discussion
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Oct 21, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy discussion; Agriculture and Food · Source
0.15
agreement between talk and bills (0 to 1), in the bottom 5% of State House Republicans
Agreement 0.15 on a 0–1 scale; the average for State House Republicans is 0.53. Ranks 503rd of 504, where 1st is the closest match.
How closely the mix of policy areas in Ostlie’s statements matches the mix in the bills Ostlie sponsors and cosponsors: 1 means the same areas in the same proportions, 0 means no overlap. Ranked among State House Republicans.
At a glance
5 measures against State House Republicans. Ostlie voted against the majority of North Dakota House Republicans 91 times; party unity 63%, in the bottom 5% of the North Dakota House (average 79%). Ostlie sits at +0.13 on the CSIP scale, more liberal than 84% of State House Republicans.
The measures on which Ostlie 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.
Talk-to-bills agreement
0.15
State House Republicans average 0.53 · ranks 503rd of 504
Party unity
63%
North Dakota House average 79% · ranks 86th of 88 · 91 votes against the majority of North Dakota House Republicans
CSIP ideology
+0.13
More liberal than 84% of State House Republicans · ± 0.03
Attendance
95.6%
North Dakota House average 96.7% · ranks 66th of 88 · 1,171 roll calls
Itemized, 2024
$5,075
State House Republicans’ median $10.7K · ranks 158th of 240
Statements
55
55 posts on X
Peer group: State House Republicans. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Ostlie, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Ostlie is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Ostlie says
Ostlie claims credit less than 96% of State House Republicans. Credit claiming in 0% of 55 statements, against 13% for the average State House Republican; 764th of 791.
An AI model reads each of Ostlie’s 55 statements in the ND 2025–26 session (55 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 ND 2025–26 session
0%80%
Ostlie
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion33 statements
60%
32%
49th of 791
Personal attacks0 statements
0%
3%
642nd of 791
Policy criticism0 statements
0%
9%
735th of 791
Bipartisanship0 statements
0%
2%
677th of 791
Credit claiming0 statements
0%
13%
764th of 791
Show the data
| Row | Ostlie | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 60% | 32% |
| Personal attacks | 0% | 3% |
| Policy criticism | 0% | 9% |
| Bipartisanship | 0% | 2% |
| Credit claiming | 0% | 13% |
55
statements classified
55 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 55 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Ostlie; the thin grey bar is the average State House Republicans. A longer thick bar means Ostlie does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Ostlie used no extreme labels in 55 statements. The peer average is 1.4%.
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 ND 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 ND 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; 7 of them have no statements.
In Ostlie’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 55 statements
Newest first, the ND 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: 55 posts on X.
Policy
Agriculture and Food is what Ostlie talks about most: 100% of policy statements, 22.7 times the peer share. Talk and legislation agree at 0.15 on a 0–1 scale (State House Republicans average 0.53; 503rd of 504).
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 Ostlie talks about. The bills Ostlie sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Ostlie talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the ND 2025–26 session
0%100%
Ostlie
Peers
Agriculture and Food33 statements
100%
4%
Commerce1 statements
3%
4%
Armed Forces and National Security0 statements
0%
5%
Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues0 statements
0%
6%
Crime and Law Enforcement0 statements
0%
11%
Show the data
| Row | Ostlie | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food | 100% | 4% |
| Commerce | 3% | 4% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 0% | 5% |
| Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues | 0% | 6% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 0% | 11% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Ostlie’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 100%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food | 100% | 4% | 12% | 3% |
| Commerce | 3% | 4% | 0% | 3% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 0% | 11% | 18% | 11% |
| Emergency Management | 0% | 3% | 3% | 1% |
| Families | 0% | 4% | 6% | 2% |
0.15
talk-to-bills agreement, 0 to 1
State House Republicans average 0.53. Ranks 503rd of 504.
What agreement means, and what it doesn’t
Agreement is 1 minus the distance between the two distributions (Jensen–Shannon): 1 means Ostlie legislates on exactly the areas Ostlie 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 Ostlie sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Ostlie sits at +0.13 on the CSIP scale, right of 0, more liberal than 84% of State House Republicans. Approximate range +0.10 to +0.15, which understates the uncertainty; from 5 donors and 571 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”.
+0.13
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range +0.10 to +0.15. From 5 donors and 571 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Ostlie, 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 Ostlie’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 Ostlie sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State House Republicans2,917 · median +0.4
North Dakota House91 · median 0.0
All State House5,324 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Ostlie |
|---|---|---|---|
| State House Republicans | 2917 | +0.4 | 16% |
| North Dakota House | 91 | 0.0 | 77% |
| All State House | 5324 | +0.1 | 53% |
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 Ostlie 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 Ostlie.
Money
Ostlie reported $5,075 in the 2024 cycle, below the State House Republicans’ median of $10.7K. State filings report no small-donation total.
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.
$5,075
itemized in the 2024 cycle
From 0 itemized donors. State House Republicans’ median $10.7K.
Where the money came from
Each square is one percent of itemized contributions in the 2024 cycle.
- PACs and other committees90 squares$4,575
- Party committees10 squares$500
Show the data
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| PACs and other committees | $4,575 | 90.1% |
| Party committees | $500 | 9.9% |
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 2024. The grey line is the State House Republicans’ median for 2024.
Show the data
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2020 cycle | $12.8K |
| 2024 cycle | $5,075 |
Top donor states, 2024
Itemized contributions by donor state.
No itemized donors with an address.
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 |
|---|---|
| Alaska | No data |
| Maine | No data |
| Vermont | No data |
| New Hampshire | No data |
| Washington | No data |
| Idaho | No data |
| Montana | No data |
| North Dakota | No data |
| Minnesota | No data |
| Illinois | No data |
| Wisconsin | No data |
| Michigan | No data |
| New York | No data |
| Rhode Island | No data |
| Massachusetts | No data |
| Oregon | No data |
| Nevada | No data |
| Wyoming | No data |
| South Dakota | No data |
| Iowa | No data |
| Indiana | No data |
| Ohio | No data |
| Pennsylvania | No data |
| New Jersey | No data |
| Connecticut | No data |
| California | No data |
| Utah | No data |
| Colorado | No data |
| Nebraska | No data |
| Missouri | No data |
| Kentucky | No data |
| West Virginia | No data |
| Virginia | No data |
| Maryland | No data |
| Delaware | No data |
| Arizona | No data |
| New Mexico | No data |
| Kansas | No data |
| 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 |
0
itemized donors
People who gave more than $200
No itemized individual money.
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 North Dakota. Gifts of $200 or less carry no address and are left out.
Top donor occupations
Itemized, 2024 cycle.
No occupations reported.
Top committees
PAC and committee contributions, 2024 cycle.
- NORTH AMERICAN COAL PAC$1,000
- NAIFA ND IFAPAC$500
- ND ASSOC OF BUILDERS -PAC$500
- ND REPUBLICAN HOUSE CAUCUS$500
- ND RURAL ELECTRIC PAC$500
Top employers
Itemized, 2024 cycle.
No employers reported.
Aggregates only. Individual donors are never named.
Votes
Ostlie voted with the majority of North Dakota House Republicans on 63% of party-line votes and missed 4.4% of 1,171 roll calls. North Dakota House on average: 79% party unity, 96.7% attendance. Across all roll calls, Ostlie voted against the majority of North Dakota House Republicans 91 times.
1,171 roll calls Ostlie could vote on in the ND 2025–26 session, compared with North Dakota 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 Ostlie voted with the majority of North Dakota House Republicans. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
91
votes against the majority of North Dakota House Republicans
Party unity 63%, North Dakota House average 79%, ranks 86th of 88. 1,171 roll calls in the ND 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Ostlie, the thin grey bar the North Dakota House average. The scale runs from 60% to 100% to show the gap.
60%100%
Ostlie
Peers
Rank
Attendance
95.6%
96.7%
66th of 88
Party unity
63%
79%
86th of 88
Show the data
| Row | Ostlie | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 95.6% | 96.7% |
| Party unity | 63% | 79% |
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 ND 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 4, 2026 | HB 1628 AN ACT to create and enact a new subdivision to subsection 2 of section 12-60-24, subdivision lll of subsection 3 of section 19-03.1-05, and chapter 51-38 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to criminal history record checks, the scheduling of kratom alkaloid derivatives as a schedule I contr Motion for Final Passage on HB 1628 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 10–1 · R 81–0Democrats 10 yea, 1 nay; Republicans 81 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Sep 4, 2026 | SB 2408 A BILL for an Act to create and enact subdivision lll of subsection 3 of section 19-03.1-05 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to the scheduling of kratom alkaloids and kratom alkaloid derivatives as a schedule I controlled substance; to amend and reenact section 19-03.1-22.3 and subsection Motion for Final Passage on SB 2408 | Yea | Against majority | fail | D 7–4 · R 39–42Democrats 7 yea, 4 nay; Republicans 39 yea, 42 nay | close vote · party crossover |
| Sep 4, 2026 | SB 2407 AN ACT to provide an appropriation to the state historical society for the North Dakota military museum project; to amend and reenact section 55-01-02.1 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to jurisdiction of the heritage center; to repeal subsection 3 of section 6 of chapter 17 of the 2025 Se Motion for Final Passage on SB 2407 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 3–8 · R 68–13Democrats 3 yea, 8 nay; Republicans 68 yea, 13 nay | became law · party crossover |
| Sep 3, 2026 | HB 1628 AN ACT to create and enact a new subdivision to subsection 2 of section 12-60-24, subdivision lll of subsection 3 of section 19-03.1-05, and chapter 51-38 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to criminal history record checks, the scheduling of kratom alkaloid derivatives as a schedule I contr Motion for Final Passage on HB 1628 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 8–3 · R 78–2Democrats 8 yea, 3 nay; Republicans 78 yea, 2 nay | became law · party crossover |
| Jan 23, 2026 | SB 2402 AN ACT to create and enact two new sections to chapter 43-15 and a new subsection to section 43-48-03 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to the prescriptive authority of pharmacists and therapeutic substitution; to amend and reenact subsection 1 of section 26.1-36.11-01 and section 43-15-01 Motion for Final Passage on SB 2402 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 10–0 · R 81–1Democrats 10 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 81 yea, 1 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 Ostlie most often
- Mark SanfordR1,024 shared votes94%
- Dick AndersonR1,015 shared votes94%
- Larry KleminR1,104 shared votes93%
- Mike BeltzR1,119 shared votes93%
- Bernie SatromR1,039 shared votes93%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Ostlie least often
- Donna HendersonR1,058 shared votes55%
- Christina WolffR1,116 shared votes60%
- Dennis NehringR1,119 shared votes62%
- Desiree MortonR1,116 shared votes63%
- Lori VanWinkleR1,019 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
ND 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
Ostlie sponsored 2 bills in the ND 2025–26 session; 1 became law. Cosponsored 25 others.
The bills Ostlie sponsored and cosponsored in the ND 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 ND 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Role | Introduced | In committee | Passed one chamber | Passed both chambers | Became law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Cosponsored | 25 | 24 | 19 | 17 | 17 |
How to read the blocks
Ink blocks are bills Ostlie sponsored, ochre blocks bills Ostlie 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 Ostlie, by number of shared bills in the ND 2025–26 session; the square shows their party.
- Bernie Satrom15
- Cole Conley15
- Jim Grueneich8
- Claire Cory5
- Jason Dockter5
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 Ostlie’s bills; the toggle shows more.
Bill list
Sponsored and cosponsored, with status and policy area; five are shown, the toggle shows the rest
| HCR 3030 | A concurrent resolution to strengthen the sister-state relations between the State of North Dakota and Taiwan and to reaffirm support for Taiwan's international participation. | Cosponsor | Feb 19, 2025 | Passed one chamber | International Affairs(model) | Filed with Secretary Of State 04/03 Apr 1, 2025 |
| SB 2375 | AN ACT to create and enact a new section to chapter 43-28 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to joint negotiations by dental providers with dental insurers. | Cosponsor | Jan 27, 2025 | Became law | Health(model) | Filed with Secretary Of State 04/22 Apr 24, 2025 |
| HB 1556 | AN ACT to amend and reenact subsection 5 of section 27-20.3-01, and sections 27-20.3-15 and 27-20.3-21 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to a child in need of protection and termination of parental rights; to create a workgroup under the children's cabinet to study out-of-home placement or | Cosponsor | Jan 20, 2025 | Became law | Families(model) | Filed with Secretary Of State 04/23 Apr 25, 2025 |
| HB 1559 | A BILL for an Act to create and enact a new section to chapter 57-02 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to limitations on taxable valuation of residential property; and to provide an effective date. | Cosponsor | Jan 20, 2025 | In committee | Taxation(model) | Second reading, failed to pass, yeas 31 nays 58 Feb 11, 2025 |
| HB 1591 | AN ACT to provide an appropriation to the agriculture commissioner for a county fair resiliency grant program; and to declare an emergency. | Sponsor | Jan 20, 2025 | Became law | Agriculture and Food(model) | Filed with Secretary Of State 04/21 Apr 22, 2025 |
Online
A site that changed 2 times in 90 days. Ostlie’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Ostlie’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 Ostlie posts with a vision model.
Websites
- 1
pages crawled
2changes in 90 days
- 50
pages crawled
10changes 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 Ostlie posted
No images from Ostlie’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
71 turns, Jan 11, 2021 to May 1, 2025
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 Ostlie 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
- a9b3e13f-b522-4383-b775-45afc7636520
- Open States
- ocd-person/a9b3e13f-b522-4383-b775-45afc7636520
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