Bipartisan Campaign Messages are Credible Policymaking Signals

Bipartisan cooperation is essential to congressional productivity and democratic legitimacy, yet bipartisan campaign rhetoric is widely dismissed as an electioneering tactic that offers voters unreliable information about future governance. This skepticism calls into question the informational role of campaigns and, in turn, the quality of democratic representation. We challenge this view, arguing that bipartisan campaign appeals function as issue-specific signals that credibly forecast cross-party collaboration. Drawing on issue-level statements from U.S. House candidates (N=43,465; 2018--2022), we document that bipartisan messaging is common across candidates, but deployed selectively within campaigns. Linking these commitments to all legislation introduced in the 116th--118th Congresses, we show that candidates who emphasize bipartisan cooperation on particular issues subsequently engage in meaningful cross-party policymaking in those domains, which translates to legislative success. We demonstrate that candidates’ issue-specific bipartisan commitments structure the selective cross-party cooperation that persists in a polarized era.