Besides the persistent debate on the impact of political connections on firm innovation, the heterogeneity in search decision and efforts also remains unclear. By distinguishing two types of managerial political ties, horizontal (i.e., block ties with regions) and vertical (i.e., line ties with departments), we examine the opposite effects of political ties on firm search breadth. Moreover, we propose that these effects are contingent on the foreignness of the context. Through analysis of a sample of publicly listed Chinese firms from 2004 to 2014, we find that firms whose executives have block tend to conduct broader search than those without such ties, while the line ties are negatively related to the search breadth of the focal firm. The effects of the two types of political ties can be particularly stronger when the firms are have higher proportion of oversea business. Our research contributes to the literature on the relationship between political ties and firm innovation, the heterogeneity of political ties, and the literatures on the liability of foreignness.