Not All Women: Partisanship's Impact on Congressional Campaign Communication on Twitter

The 2022 midterm elections resulted in a record-breaking number of women being elected to the U.S. Congress. Previous research suggests that men and women adopt very different styles when campaigning for Congress on Twitter. Women tend to focus more on issues and especially women's issues compared to men. This research examines gender dynamics during the 2022 midterm elections to uncover gender differences in congressional campaign communication. We find that while both gender and party play a role in the attention congressional candidates give to "women's issues," partisanship has a stronger role in shaping candidates' attention to "men's issues." Democratic men and women focus significantly more on women's issues compared to Republican men. Republican women focused more on women's issues in the House but not the Senate races. Meanwhile, both Democratic women and men focused less attention on men's issues; however, the differences between Republican men and women were insignificant. This research helps shed light on the role of gender and party in congressional campaign communication on Twitter at a highly polarized time in American politics.