The construction, influence, and strategic use of narratives to influence policy decisions have garnered increased scholarly attention over the past decade as the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has matured within the policy studies field. Our prior analysis extended the NPF scholarship to examine electoral policy narrative construction during the 2018 elections. We found that the NPF can apply to electoral politics, but there are differences in how electoral policy narratives are constructed according to candidate party, gender, and electoral outcomes. Analyzing the narratives from both Republican and Democratic campaigns in U.S. House swing districts, here we assess whether policy issues can be differentiated based on their use of evidence and examine narratives to understand if there are systematic differences of construction according to policy issue type. The findings suggest that narrative use of evidence by congressional campaigns varies strategically and systematically by policy issue. Overall, the article presents a novel application of NPF analysis across policy domains while proposing a relationship between evidence and the setting and moral of the story element of narrative form based on issue type.

在过去十年中，随着叙事政策框架 (NPF) 在政策研究领域的成熟，叙事的构建、影响和战略性使用以影响政策决策已经获得了越来越多的学术关注。我们之前的分析扩展了 NPF 奖学金，以检查 2018 年选举期间的选举政策叙述结构。我们发现 NPF 可以适用于选举政治，但根据候选人政党、性别和选举结果如何构建选举政策叙述存在差异。分析美国众议院摇摆区共和党和民主党竞选活动的叙述，在这里，我们评估是否可以根据对证据的使用来区分政策问题，并检查叙述以了解根据政策问题类型是否存在系统性的构建差异。研究结果表明，国会竞选活动对证据的叙述性使用因政策问题而在战略上和系统上有所不同。总体而言，本文提出了 NPF 分析在政策领域的新应用，同时提出了证据与基于问题类型的叙事形式的故事元素的背景和道德之间的关系。