Transparency & Methodology

How We Score Campaign Emails

Every campaign email CampaignRadar receives is analyzed within seconds of arrival using a hybrid scoring system — combining rule-based detection with AI analysis to produce a single letter grade and detailed breakdown.

We believe voters and journalists deserve to know not just what candidates are saying, but how they say it — and whether the tactics they use to communicate respect or manipulate their audience.

This page explains exactly how we arrive at every score. Nothing is a black box.

Scoring at a Glance
Informative Content30%
Transparency30%
Tone & Manipulation25%
Subject Line Quality15%
Rule-based component40%
AI component60%
Data Collection

How we get the emails

CampaignRadar subscribes to campaign email lists across every congressional district using a purpose-built subscription bot. Each candidate is assigned a unique inbound email address — for example, cr-000004@inbound.campaignradar.io — so every email can be attributed to exactly the right campaign.

When a campaign sends an email, it arrives at our inbound mail server within seconds. The email is parsed, stored, and queued for scoring automatically. No human reads the email before it is scored — the process is fully automated from receipt to grade.

We only subscribe to publicly available campaign email lists. We do not intercept or access any private communications. Every campaign we track made a conscious decision to send mass emails, and CampaignRadar receives them as any member of the public would.

01
Subscribe at scale
Our bot visits each campaign website, finds the email signup form, and subscribes using the candidate's unique inbound address. Each address is permanent and traceable to exactly one campaign.
02
Receive & parse
Incoming emails are parsed for subject line, body text, HTML content, sender authentication headers (DKIM, SPF, DMARC), and the sending platform within seconds of arrival.
03
Score & store
Each email is scored immediately using our hybrid system. Scores accumulate into a running grade for each candidate that updates with every new email received.
Scoring Dimensions

What we measure in every email

Each email is evaluated across four dimensions, weighted to reflect what matters most for voter-facing communication: whether the email informs, whether it is honest about who sent it, and whether it respects the reader.

Dimension 01 · 30% weight
30%
Informative Content Ratio
How much of the email contains policy substance, factual claims, legislative updates, or civic information — versus pure fundraising asks with no informational value?
Positive signals
Policy position Legislation cited Data or research Issue advocacy
Negative signals
Pure fundraising No policy content Urgency without context
Dimension 02 · 30% weight
30%
Transparency
Does the email include all legally required disclosures? Is the sender authenticated? Transparency scoring rewards campaigns that follow the rules and penalizes those that hide who they are.
Positive signals
Unsubscribe link Paid for by disclosure DKIM authenticated Physical address
Negative signals
No unsubscribe Missing disclosure Authentication failure
Dimension 03 · 25% weight
25%
Tone & Manipulation
Does the email use fear, urgency, or emotional pressure to drive action? Fundraising is normal and expected — we penalize manufactured urgency and fear tactics, not legitimate deadline-based asks.
Negative signals
Urgency language Fear framing Manufactured deadline Catastrophizing ALL CAPS subject
Dimension 04 · 15% weight
15%
Subject Line Quality
Is the subject line honest and descriptive, or does it use manipulation tactics to force an open? Subject lines are often the first — and only — thing a voter reads from a campaign.
Positive signals
Descriptive subject Appropriate length
Negative signals
ALL CAPS "Last chance" Excessive punctuation
Deadline-Aware Scoring

Not all urgency is manufactured

Campaigns face real, legally mandated filing deadlines with the FEC — quarterly reports, pre-primary disclosures, and year-end filings. An email sent two days before a genuine FEC deadline with urgent fundraising language is meaningfully different from the same email sent mid-month with no deadline in sight.

CampaignRadar cross-references the date each email was received against a database of real FEC filing deadlines and end-of-quarter dates. Urgency language is penalized on a sliding scale based on how close a legitimate deadline actually is.

Context
Timing
Penalty Applied
Internal Flag
Real FEC deadline
Within 2 days
10% — minimal
urgency_legitimate
Real FEC deadline
3–5 days out
40% — small
urgency_near_deadline
End of quarter
Within 5 days
30% — reduced
urgency_quarter_end
End of month
Within 3 days
50% — moderate
urgency_month_end
No deadline nearby
Mid-month
100% — full
manufactured_urgency
AI Analysis

The role of artificial intelligence

Rule-based scoring is fast and consistent, but it can miss nuance. A campaign email that avoids every keyword on our manipulation list could still be subtly misleading. That is why every email also receives an AI analysis pass using Claude, Anthropic's AI model.

The AI evaluates each email with full context — understanding tone, intent, and purpose in ways that keyword detection cannot. It also generates the plain-language summary that appears on every candidate profile: a one-sentence explanation of what the campaign is actually asking for and why.

Rule-Based Score
40%
Consistent & Auditable
The rule-based score runs deterministic checks: keyword detection, disclosure presence, authentication headers, subject line analysis. Every decision is traceable and reproducible. The same email will always receive the same rule-based score.
AI Score
60%
Contextual & Nuanced
The AI score accounts for the full meaning of the email — reading it the way a voter would. It considers whether fundraising language is proportionate, whether urgency is contextually appropriate, and whether the overall email respects the reader. It also generates the plain-language summary shown on every profile.
Grade Scale

From A to F

A candidate's overall grade is the weighted average of their individual email scores. New emails update the grade immediately. A candidate who starts with poor communication habits can improve — and one who starts strong can see it fall.

A
82–100
Substantive, transparent, no manipulation
B+
72–81
Strong content, minor concerns
B
62–71
Mostly good with some pressure tactics
C+
52–61
Mixed content, moderate concerns
C
42–51
Heavy fundraising, limited substance
D
32–41
Heavy manipulation, poor transparency
F
0–31
Fear-based, misleading, or no disclosure

What we don't score

CampaignRadar grades how candidates communicate — not what they believe. We do not score, evaluate, or express any opinion on a candidate's policy positions, political ideology, party affiliation, or fitness for office.

A progressive Democrat and a conservative Republican can both earn an A. A candidate we personally agree with can earn an F. The scoring system is blind to politics — it only evaluates communication quality.

We also do not score based on how often candidates send emails, how much they raise, or whether their campaigns are successful. A candidate who sends one excellent email scores better than one who sends twenty manipulative ones.

If you believe a score is in error, contact us. We review disputes and will correct genuine errors in our data.

See the scores for yourself

Browse candidate profiles across every congressional district — grades, email histories, and plain-language summaries of every message we've received.

Browse Candidates