The Presidency, According to Congress
How Republicans and Democrats Talk About Presidents with A look at the First Year of Trump II
As the President’s first year of his second term ended, many congressional Republicans took to their e-newsletters to tout his (and their) achievements. This DCinbox Insight is going to be heavier on the visuals, because that’s the strategy used by many members of congress.
Beyond the images, there are enduring insights about how Republicans talk about presidents versus how Democrats do (or really don’t). Republicans are much better at talking about whoever is in the White House than Democrats do; when it’s a Democrat they complain, when it’s a Republican they compliment. Democrats, on the other hand, are relatively quieter. Let’s look at the focus on Obama, Trump, and Biden over time.
Republicans wrote to constituents about Obama much more than Democrats did when he was in office, and they still mention him relatively more today. Currently, in DCinbox, 13% of all messages mention Obama. As DCinbox was getting started, I thought this might be an out-party phenomenon, something that would switch if a Republican were elected to the presidency. So when Trump took office in 2017, I waited to see if the patterns would reverse.
They didn’t. Democrats certainly picked up their game in mentioning an out-party president, but Republicans did more praising of Trump and continued to outpace Democrats. This persisted once he was out of office, and now that we are into his second term, both parties have upped the focus, but Republicans continue to do more. DCinbox had full coverage by 2020, meaning that Obama appears in the database for about six years, while Trump has been in it for five so far and was very rarely mentioned before he took office. Yet 17% of all messages mention him (or the word “Trump,” which is occasionally used in other contexts).
During the Biden administration, Republicans went back to bashing, and despite Biden only being president for four years, 15% of all official e-newsletters mention him and nearly all of which occurred during his term rather than when he was vice president. Here, too, Republicans communicated with constituents about Biden far more than Democrats did.
How does GOP messaging look one year into the second Trump Administration?
If you’re reading a lot of traditional or polling insider media you’re probably encountering stories about low approval ratings for President Trump. USA Today is writing about slumps, Bloomberg is breaking things out by topic and finding slides in each, as is Politico and the New York Times, and G Elliot Morris is finding downward movement in polls too. But if you read Republican authored e-newsletters, the story is very different.
To celebrate his first year back in office, here’s what a number of official congressional e-newsletters look like:
These patterns underscore a persistent asymmetry in how the two parties use official communications. Republicans treat the presidency (especially when held by one of their own) as something to actively cheer on and defend, and they visually reinforce this message for constituents. Democrats, by contrast, are far more restrained, even when they hold the White House, and hardly any ever sent an images with themselves and Biden or Obama. One year into Trump’s second term, that difference is especially stark: while polling-driven media narratives emphasize decline and dissatisfaction, Republican e-newsletters present a unified, celebratory account of presidential success.