Know your constituents? Hard to know with federal politicians

Jordan Adams, Tristan Campbell | GNP contributors

It’s often said that what you say shows who you are. That can be especially revealing for elected politicians who voters trust to look after their interests.

Surveys show that people often feel like they can’t trust politicians.

That raises the question of whether the people Pitt County elects to the federal government show trust by being in touch with the issues and concerns of their constituents.

The Greenville News Project spent the past few months looking into that question. At first it contacted the Washington, DC, offices of North Carolina’s US Sens. Tom Tillis and Ted Budd, and US Reps. Don Davis and Greg Murphy, in whose districts split Pitt County.

Ironically, reporters received few responses before and after the 43-day federal government shutdown that started Oct. 1.

That left GNP to define “being in touch” as whether it was clear that through their public messaging, the officials were addressing the concerns of their constituents.

How Americans feel

Americans more than ever feel that politicians are out of touch. A 2023 study by the Pew Research Center found that about 85% of Americans believe that politicians simply do not care about them. Even fewer feel that members of Congress do a good job at serving the public interest.

Nearly three-fourths of those who responded to the Pew survey held an unfavorable view of Congress, a number that has fallen in the past half decade. Half of the respondents to a national 2018 Yankelovich Democracy Monitor survey believed that Congress members care about their constituents. Less than 40 percent feel the same today.

An Elon University found that 53% of North Carolinians were concerned about their safety in public places. Nearly half said they would be concerned about their safety in Charlotte. The survey came in late September following the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte and a mass shooting in Southport, near Wilmington.

Another Elon poll from late September revealed that nearly half of North Carolinians believe that the state and national economies have worsened since the beginning of President Trump’s second term. It also found that 63% of North Carolinians were concerned about healthcare.

National surveys show that citizens aren’t fond of Congress in general, and health care, the economy and safety are especially on the minds of North Carolinians. The question is whether the Tillis, Budd, Davis and Murphy reflect that in their messaging.

News releases

The topics of their statements to the news media can be revealing for what they say about the politician’s priorities. But it’s often a staffer, not the elected official, who decides what goes on in a news release, said ECU political science professor Jay Morris. He knows first-hand from his time as a staff member in the office of former U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

“We put out the press releases that the congressman never saw because he trusted [us] to know what he would approve of and not approve of,” Morris said.

The GNP reviewed news releases from the official websites of Budd, Davis, Murphy and Tillis from May 1 to Oct. 25. On their surface, the releases often didn’t seem to align with the concerns that North Carolinians expressed in surveys.

“In the case of Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, the constituency is the entire state of North Carolina,” Morris said. “So, these [news releases] are going to be broader statements than, say, a member of the House of Representatives.”

The Elon survey about North Carolinians’ views on public safety was published Oct. 14, 2025. The month before, Budd’s office posted two news releases about crime elsewhere.

In one, Budd condemned crime in Washington, DC. In the other, he condemned alleged crimes against Christians in Nigeria. None of his press statements over the period GNP reviewed them mentioned crime in North Carolina.

And neither of the two matched the facts. A 2024 FBI report found a general decline in crime in major American cities like Charlotte. Nigerian officials have dismissed the notion that Christians alone are targets of crime. They say that extremist violence affects people of all religions and backgrounds, and that the violence is more common in the Muslim-majority regions of the country.

For Tillis and Murphy, neither spoke of crime in the news releases GNP reviewed. Among other topics, Tillis announced funding to develop airports in North Carolina and condemned Russian airstrikes in Ukraine. Murphy frequently used his news releases to blame Senate Democrats for the government shutdown.

For Davis, most of his news releases focused on matters of concern to his 1st Congressional District of mostly rural counties. It includes north Pitt County. Among the topics were support for local farmers and military families during the government shutdown.

Tillis had news releases compared to Budd. “He’s no longer running for reelection, so that kind of changes some of the tone of what he’s saying,” Morris said. “Maybe that’s why Ted Budd’s talking more about bringing money to North Carolina.”

On Nov. 18, Budd’s office posted a news statement applauding a $1 billion investment to build a new facility to bring the rare-earth magnet manufacturing industry closer to North Carolina.

Social media

Social media can give politicians an instant connection to constituents across their districts and the state. Budd is active on social media, posting 48 times on Facebook in October. Like his news releases, many of his posts use charged, partisan language.

“How much ‘suffering’ must the American people feel before Senate Democrats end the Schumer Shutdown?” Budd wrote in an Oct. 22 post during the government shutdown.

Murphy too is active on social media, and he too often uses partisan language. In an Oct. 6 Facebook post, he wrote that “Chinese Communist Party operates with no moral compass and will do whatever is necessary to push the ideals of the communist regime.”

Morris says that politicians like Murphy want to appeal to the public as much as possible. Partisanship is a given in politics, but hyper-partisanship risks missing bread-and-butter issues

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“What are you doing to save our healthcare and food for the needy?” one commenter wrote to a post in which Murphy again slammed Democrats as the sole cause of the government shutdown.

In contrast, Davis keeps his social media topics closer to home and isn’t as partisan. His posts rarely mention issues outside of North Carolina and his congressional district.

Health care was a frequent topic Davis’s posts. So was concern for military families and farmers during the shutdown.

GNP didn’t see any standalone mentions of crime, the economy or healthcare in the Davis and Murphy social media posts. If the topics came up, they were tied to the government shutdown

.

Tillis is less active on social media. He posted on his official Facebook only 10 times in October. Two of the posts were related to personal matters while others included praise for President Trump’s Gaza peace plan. There was no mention of the issues that North Carolinians expressed concern for in the Elon poll.

Meeting with constituents

News releases and social media posts are indirect ways of speaking to constituents. Speaking directly is another matter.

GNP scanned the four politicians’ news releases and news media reporting across North Carolina to find out how often they meet directly with their constituents.

Budd announced a 100-county tour of North Carolina that would begin in western North Carolina and focus on recovery from Hurricane Helene. Davis also announced a tour for post-Helene recovery. In May, the Goldsboro Daily News reported on Davis’s “Week Across the East” tour where he met with residents from Tyrrell to Washington counties.

Murphy and Tillis appear to lack of visible attempts to meet with constituents. A roundtable discussion with Murphy on July 18 was canceled an hour before it began. According to WITN, Murphy’s representatives said he was still in DC.

Tillis’s office attributed his reluctance to attend town halls on the death threats he and his staffers have received. A threatening letter was sent to Tillis in March, and it was later published on his website.

On March 17 Tillis’s staff published a video to his social media accounts that was a compilation of angry voicemails, including death threats. It was mocked across social media.

“This video has done more to benefit humanity than both your political career and personal life combined,” one YouTube user commented.

“Should have titled the video ‘soothing sounds to fall asleep to’,” another wrote.

The angry and threatening calls, emails and replies aside, it’s hard to say just how many messages any of the four politicians receive. Budd’s communications director, Christian McMullen, told GNP in a Nov. 14 email that “constituent outreach is strictly confidential.” Reporters had asked for an average number, not individual messages.

Two responses came to GNP a few weeks after McMullen’s initial reply. The first was attributed to Budd, and it blamed the shutdown on Senate Democrats. It said they had “held the nation hostage for 44 days to appease their radical left base.”

The second came directly from McMullen, who wrote that Budd receives about 800 phone calls and 2,500 emails per day.

“By the end of 2025, Senator Budd will have connected with approximately 200,000 North Carolinians via the tele townhall format,” McMullen said. He made it a point to say that this information is not typically disclosed publicly, and that he had to get “extra permissions” to ECU student-reporters and their GNP class website.

The Raleigh News & Observer reported on Sept. 10 that none of the four politicians in this story held in-person town halls over the August congressional recess. The article noted that Murphy threw the first pitch at Morehead City Marlins' game while Davis was on another tour of his congressional district.

“The recess means that the elected representatives in the House and the Senate go home to their district or their state and work with their voters or talk to people,” said Morris, the ECU political science professor.

But the culture of town halls is changing, said Duke University Professor Asher Hildebrand. He worked with former US Rep. David Price of North Carolina’s 4th congressional district from 2015 to 2019.

“When I worked in Congress, we would regularly schedule town halls all around the district.

Unfortunately, you see much less of that these days,” he said.

“Some of that is because of legitimate safety concerns, but I also think it reflects the changing culture of Congress and less of a sense of accountability to meet with all constituents.”

The GNP reached out to Tillis, Budd, Murphy and Davis multiple times to ask about those town halls but received little to no response. “Sorry we missed your call. We were busy assisting other constituents,” was the voicemail greeting from Tillis’s office during the government shutdown.

Keeping in contact

GNP made over 50 attempts, starting Sept. 30, to contact the media representative of the four politicians. The goal – ask how their bosses keep in touch with their constituents. On a few occasions, a staff member promised to reply. Only one, McMullen from Budd’s office, did.

Tillis’s office did not respond to GNPs phone calls and emails. J. Adam Webb, Tillis’s communications director, did not respond to direct emails or messages on his LinkedIn account.

Budd’s press secretary, Samara St. John, also did not respond to email or direct messages on LinkedIn.

A member of Budd’s staff assured GNP on Oct. 7 that a media specialist would be in touch despite the shutdown. They weren’t. Murphy’s staff also said that they would be in touch. They weren’t.

Davis's office replied to GNP by email to direct reporters to the email form on the congress member’s official website.

Adams and Campbell produced this story for the Fall 2025 course, In-depth Reporting.