Friday, January 17, 2020

Site tracks how often each Congress member votes with Trump; could be helpful in covering this year's elections

Part of the database shows two senators who support Trump much more than their voters do; click on the image to enlarge.
The first votes in the 2020 primary elections will be cast soon, and some primary challengers have attempted to unseat their opponents by criticizing how often their opponents did (or didn't) vote with President Trump. If you're reporting on your local congressional race, it's essential to know how often that actually happened, and to know the details of the issues involved.

Analytics site FiveThirtyEight has compiled a database that tracks how often each member of Congress has voted in line with Trump's position; Trump's local share of the vote in the 2016 election minus Clinton's (as a rough measure of the president's popularity in the district); a prediction of how often each member is expected to support Trump in the future, based on the first two figures; and the difference between a member's actual support for Trump and their predicted support. Also, if you click on the senator or representative's name, you can see the specific bills they voted on.

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