Believing What Politicians Communicate: Ideological Presentation of Self and Voters’ Perceptions of Politician Ideology

Abstract Politicians’ presentation of self is central to election efforts. For these efforts to be successful, they need voters to receive and believe the messages they communicate. We examine the relationship between politicians’ communications and voters’ perceptions of their ideology. Using the content of politicians’ ideological presentation of self through social media communications, we create a measure of messaging ideology for all congressional candidates between 2018 and 2022 and all congressional officeholders between 2012 and 2022 along with voter perceptions of candidate ideology during the same time period. Using these measures, our work shows voters’ perceptions of candidate ideology are strongly related to messaging, even after controlling for incumbent voting behavior. We also examine how the relationship between politician messaging and voter perceptions changes relative to other information about the politician and in different electoral contexts. On the whole, voters’ perceptions of candidate ideology are strongly correlated with politician communications.