Surviving or thriving political defeat on social media: a temporal analysis of how electoral loss exacerbates the gender gap in political expression

Abstract

Extensive research reveals gender gaps in social media expression, particularly women’s reduced propensity for sharing political information and opinions. We examine the impact of political defeat on the gender gap in political expression on social media by pairing Twitter data from candidate supporters with a voter file. Our results indicate that Trump’s 2020 defeat reduced tweet volumes only among his female supporters, while his male supporters remained unaffected. This dampening effect was stronger for female Trump supporters who expressed their gender identity in their Twitter bios than those who did not. Tweet content remained largely unchanged for both genders. These findings enhance our understanding of how social media and political defeat together contribute to the gender expression gap and its relationship with offline political behaviors post-defeat. They also demonstrate the power of our methodological approach in revealing temporal and individual differences.