Policy discussion
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Aug 18, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy discussion; Education; Labor and Employment · Source
41
statements classified
41 posts on X in the KY 2025–26 session. No measure in the KY 2025–26 session stands far from the peer average.
Every post, press release, newsletter and floor speech the lab collected and ran through its classifier.
At a glance
5 measures against State House Republicans. Payne voted against the majority of Kentucky House Republicans 9 times; party unity 96.0%, in the bottom half of the Kentucky House (average 95.2%). Payne sits at +0.42 on the CSIP scale, more conservative than 62% of State House Republicans. Payne reported $54.8K in the 2026 cycle, in the top half of State House Republicans (median $33.7K).
The measures on which Payne 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.
Attendance
95.6%
Kentucky House average 91.1% · ranks 26th of 100 · 785 roll calls
Party unity
96.0%
Kentucky House average 95.2% · ranks 63rd of 100 · 9 votes against the majority of Kentucky House Republicans
CSIP ideology
+0.42
More conservative than 62% of State House Republicans · ± 0.10
Itemized, 2026
$54.8K
State House Republicans’ median $33.7K · ranks 911th of 2,521
From Kentucky, 2026
97%
Of itemized individual dollars · ranks 1183rd of 2,335 State House Republicans
Statements
41
41 posts on X
Peer group: State House Republicans. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Payne, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Payne is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Payne says
Payne criticizes policies less than 92% of State House Republicans. Policy criticism in 0% of 41 statements, against 9.3% for the average State House Republican; 735th of 791.
An AI model reads each of Payne’s 41 statements in the KY 2025–26 session (41 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 KY 2025–26 session
0%80%
Payne
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion13 statements
32%
32%
376th of 791
Credit claiming6 statements
15%
13%
294th of 791
Bipartisanship2 statements
5%
2%
75th of 791
Personal attacks0 statements
0%
3%
642nd of 791
Policy criticism0 statements
0%
9%
735th of 791
Show the data
| Row | Payne | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 32% | 32% |
| Credit claiming | 15% | 13% |
| Bipartisanship | 5% | 2% |
| Personal attacks | 0% | 3% |
| Policy criticism | 0% | 9% |
41
statements classified
41 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 41 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Payne; the thin grey bar is the average State House Republicans. A longer thick bar means Payne does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Payne used no extreme labels in 41 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 KY 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Column | Statements | Personal attacks | Policy criticism | Policy discussion | Bipartisanship | Credit claiming | Extreme labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan ’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) |
| Feb ’25 | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 50.0% | 10.0% | 10.0% | 0.0% |
| 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 | 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) |
| Jun ’25 | 2 | — (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 | 2 | — (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 | 0 | — (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 | 2 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Oct ’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) |
| Nov ’25 | 0 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Dec ’25 | 0 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Jan ’26 | 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) |
| Feb ’26 | 0 | — (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 ’26 | 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 ’26 | 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 ’26 | 0 | — (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 ’26 | 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) |
| Jul ’26 | 2 | — (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 ’26 | 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) |
| Sep ’26 | 0 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
| Oct ’26 | 0 | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) | — (fewer than 10 statements) |
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 KY 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%. 21 months are hatched here; 7 of them have no statements.
In Payne’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.
Mar 10, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · credit claiming · Source
Bipartisanship
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Apr 4, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · bipartisanship · 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 41 statements
Newest first, the KY 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: 41 posts on X.
Policy
Education is what Payne talks about most: 85% of policy statements, 5.7 times the peer share. Peers give it 15%.
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 Payne talks about. The bills Payne sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Payne talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the KY 2025–26 session
0%93%
Payne
Peers
Education11 statements
85%
15%
Labor and Employment3 statements
23%
3%
Agriculture and Food1 statements
8%
4%
Government Operations and Politics1 statements
8%
18%
Armed Forces and National Security0 statements
0%
5%
Show the data
| Row | Payne | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Education | 85% | 15% |
| Labor and Employment | 23% | 3% |
| Agriculture and Food | 8% | 4% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 8% | 18% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 0% | 5% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Payne’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 93%. Grey ticks are the State House 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 Payne legislates on exactly the areas Payne 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 Payne sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Payne sits at +0.42 on the CSIP scale, right of 0, more conservative than 62% of State House Republicans. Approximate range +0.33 to +0.52, which understates the uncertainty; from 137 donors and 297 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”.
+0.42
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range +0.33 to +0.52. From 137 donors and 297 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Payne, 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 Payne’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 Payne sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State House Republicans2,917 · median +0.4
Kentucky House100 · median +0.4
All State House5,324 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Payne |
|---|---|---|---|
| State House Republicans | 2917 | +0.4 | 62% |
| Kentucky House | 100 | +0.4 | 58% |
| All State House | 5324 | +0.1 | 79% |
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 Payne 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 Payne.
Money
Payne reported $54.8K in the 2026 cycle, above the State House Republicans’ median of $33.7K. State filings report no small-donation total. 97% of itemized individual money came from Kentucky.
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.
$54.8K
itemized in the 2026 cycle
From 88 itemized donors. State House Republicans’ median $33.7K.
Where the money came from
Each square is one percent of itemized contributions in the 2026 cycle.
- Individuals (itemized)77 squares$42.0K
- PACs and other committees23 squares$12.5K
- Party committees$250
Show the data
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individuals (itemized) | $42.0K | 76.7% |
| PACs and other committees | $12.5K | 22.8% |
| Party committees | $250 | 0.5% |
What this means, and what it doesn’t
Totals say how much a campaign took in, not how it was spent, and they rise sharply when a seat is up for election; compare cycles with that in mind.
Receipts by cycle
Itemized contributions, 2024 to 2026. The grey line is the State House Republicans’ median for 2026.
Show the data
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024 cycle | $35.5K |
| 2026 cycle | $54.8K |
Top donor states, 2026
Itemized contributions by donor state. 97% came from Kentucky.
- Kentucky$40.7K
- Indiana$788
- California$500
- Tennessee$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 |
|---|---|
| Kentucky | $40.7K |
| Indiana | $788 |
| California | $500 |
| Tennessee | $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 |
| Iowa | No data |
| Ohio | No data |
| Pennsylvania | No data |
| New Jersey | No data |
| Connecticut | No data |
| Utah | No data |
| Colorado | No data |
| Nebraska | No data |
| Missouri | 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 |
| 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 |
88
itemized donors
People who gave more than $200
97%
from Kentucky
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 Kentucky. Gifts of $200 or less carry no address and are left out.
Top donor occupations
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
- RETIRED$10.4K 29 donors
- ATTORNEY$4,100 5 donors
- OWNER$4,000 8 donors
Top committees
PAC and committee contributions, 2026 cycle.
- BLUEGRASS COMMITTEE$2,200
- PLUMBERS AND PIPEFITTERS LOCAL 633 POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE$2,200
- ALLIANCE COAL PAC$1,000
- CHARTER SPECTRUM EMPLOYEE PAC$1,000
- KENTUCKY BANKERS COMMITTEE FOR STATE GOVERNMENT$1,000
Top employers
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
- KY STATE LEGISLATURE$2,000 3 donors
- FIELD AND MAIN BANK$1,811 5 donors
- HENDERSON COUNTY SCHOOLS$400 3 donors
Aggregates only. Individual donors are never named.
Votes
Payne voted with the majority of Kentucky House Republicans on 96.0% of party-line votes and missed 4.3% of 785 roll calls. Kentucky House on average: 95.2% party unity, 91.1% attendance. Across all roll calls, Payne voted against the majority of Kentucky House Republicans 9 times.
785 roll calls Payne could vote on in the KY 2025–26 session, compared with Kentucky 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 Payne voted with the majority of Kentucky House Republicans. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
9
votes against the majority of Kentucky House Republicans
Party unity 96.0%, Kentucky House average 95.2%, ranks 63rd of 100. 785 roll calls in the KY 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Payne, the thin grey bar the Kentucky House average. The scale runs from 80% to 100% to show the gap.
80%100%
Payne
Peers
Rank
Attendance
95.6%
91.1%
26th of 100
Party unity
96.0%
95.2%
63rd of 100
Show the data
| Row | Payne | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 95.6% | 91.1% |
| Party unity | 96.0% | 95.2% |
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 KY 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 15, 2026 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 17–1 · R 80–0Democrats 17 yea, 1 nay; Republicans 80 yea, 0 nay | became law | |
| Apr 15, 2026 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 18–1 · R 62–14Democrats 18 yea, 1 nay; Republicans 62 yea, 14 nay | became law · party crossover | |
| Apr 15, 2026 | SJR 116 A JOINT RESOLUTION directing the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, and Eastern Kentucky University to coordinate a search for actionable solutions to physician shortages and to explore and expand health care opportunities in medically underserved areas in collaboration with commu Adopt | Yea | With majority | pass | D 18–0 · R 78–0Democrats 18 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 78 yea, 0 nay | became law |
| Apr 15, 2026 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 19–0 · R 74–3Democrats 19 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 74 yea, 3 nay | became law | |
| Apr 15, 2026 | Yea | With majority | pass | D 14–4 · R 75–0Democrats 14 yea, 4 nay; Republicans 75 yea, 0 nay | became law · 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 Payne most often
- Randy BridgesR267 shared votes100%
- Mike ClinesR310 shared votes99%
- Dan FisterR328 shared votes99%
- David OsborneR326 shared votes99%
- Susan WittenR325 shared votes99%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Payne least often
- Mary Lou MarzianD223 shared votes61%
- Pamela StevensonD260 shared votes63%
- Lindsey BurkeD243 shared votes65%
- Lisa WillnerD258 shared votes66%
- George BrownD306 shared votes68%
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
KY 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
No bills for the KY 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. Payne’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Payne’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 Payne posts with a vision model.
Websites
Official site
legislature.ky.gov/Legislators/Pages/Legislator-Profile.aspx?DistrictNumber=11Last crawled Oct 1, 2026
1pages crawled
1changes in 90 days
- 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 Payne posted
No images from Payne’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
2 turns, Feb 6, 2025 to Mar 27, 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 Payne 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. That is the case for Payne in this window. The wording always names the direction (“in the bottom 5% of …”, “votes against the majority of …”).
Identifiers
- Profile id
- fded60a9-de72-47ba-bf20-90dddd9f9138
- Open States
- ocd-person/fded60a9-de72-47ba-bf20-90dddd9f9138
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