Members of Congress once had two primary means of responding to presidents while the yearly State of the Union address was delivered: stand and applaud, or sit on their hands and glare. Thanks to smartphones (or staff tucked away in offices with the passwords to official Twitter accounts), senators and representatives can now comment in real time to every word a president speaks. As they did in Jan. 2014, the congressional audience wrote more than a thousand tweets during the approximately 65 minutes that President Obama spent delivering the State of the Union.
While some Democrats and Republicans may have been sitting next to one another as a bipartisan act, members on Twitter continued to talk past each other during the speech on a partisan basis. Members of Congress of opposite parties didn’t agree on much, but they did appear to become animated on Twitter during similar parts of the speech. House Republicans in particular reserved their strongest disagreement with the president over his veto threats as well as aspects of his economic vision, like the proposal for free community college tuition and his ideas for reforming taxation. During some of these moments in Mr. Obama’s address, Democrats amplified and expanded on the president’s message.
To analyze what members of Congress said on Twitter during the hour-plus span of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union, we created four lists composed of each party’s members in the two houses of Congress. From the moment Mr. Obama began speaking, The Upshot scanned and tabulated the number of tweets published to each list. We also examined individual tweets written by senators and representatives on their Twitter accounts to see what was being said at moments of highest activity. Generally, members of the House of Representatives were more active on Twitter.
Continue reading the main storyDemocrats
Republicans
9:00 PM
9:05 PM
9:10 PM
9:15 PM
9:20 PM
9:25 PM
9:30 PM
9:35 PM
9:40 PM
9:45 PM
9:50 PM
9:55 PM
10:00 PM
10:05 PM
10:10 PM
13
15
42
32
44
63
61
68
51
30
42
27
33
51
20
8
6
29
46
55
57
64
80
71
49
34
35
23
20
15
Democrats
Republicans
9:00 PM
9:05 PM
9:10 PM
9:15 PM
9:20 PM
9:25 PM
9:30 PM
9:35 PM
9:40 PM
9:45 PM
9:50 PM
9:55 PM
10:00 PM
10:05 PM
10:10 PM
13
15
42
32
44
63
61
68
51
30
42
27
33
51
20
8
6
29
46
55
57
64
80
71
49
34
35
23
20
15
President Obama’s threat to veto bills resulted in one of the first big spikes of activity. Many Republicans issued broadsides:
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main storyMoments later, a substantial number of Democrats began tweeting about the president’s proposals for child care:
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main storyNot long after Democrats and Republicans tweeted separately about these issues, they both began tweeting in favor of and against a number of Mr. Obama’s proposals laying out his economic vision. Between the 25th and 40th minute of the speech, the volume of tweets surged to the hundreds from both parties.
As the president proposed free community college tuition, an indirect, roiling exchange occurred on Twitter:
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main storyThe president’s tax proposals also resulted in barrages of tweets from both sides. While Democrats were mostly echoing the president’s message, some Republicans could be seen tweeting from a similar script:
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main storyAlthough Republicans eagerly contested many parts of the president’s speech on Twitter, they cooled down as Mr. Obama worked toward his conclusion. And the closing of the speech seemed to rally House Democrats. While he developed the theme of “a better politics,†Democrats amplified his message vigorously, posting nearly twice as many tweets in the last 10 minutes as Republicans sent.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main storyIn contrast, Republicans were left contesting the sincerity of the president’s message about changing politics in Washington:
Continue reading the main storyAs the speech ended, it was time for some members to move on to their next thing â€" TV cameras that waited to record things they may or may not have already said on Twitter. But one congressman suggested his idea for what he thought was the best thing to do when a State of the Union was over:
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