
![]() |
Plot for Democrats |
![]() |
Plot for Republicans |
Even if a third of Clinton's and Trump's Twitter followers are fake (either spammers or invented by the campaign which Newt Gingrich did in 2012), they still have more real followers than the rest of the field. Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not readily provide data on the level of engagement and it is time consuming to count the number of retweets and favorites each candidate gets. The total social media presence may be more important than just the presence on one website. The above graphic from Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com shows the patter that Trump follows in attacking and being attacked by his rivals. Ted Cruz does not appear on either attack chart.
Candidate
|
Party
|
RCP Poll Avg % 8/29
|
Twitter Followers
|
Hillary Clinton
|
D
|
47.8
|
4,134,386
|
Bernie Sanders
|
D
|
26.3
|
384,884
|
Martin O'Malley
|
D
|
1.5
|
82,141
|
Lincoln Chafee
|
D
|
0.5
|
18,836
|
Joe Biden
|
D
|
14
|
906,498
|
Jim Webb
|
D
|
1.3
|
13,204
|
Donald Trump
|
R
|
23.5
|
3,956,287
|
Ted Cruz
|
R
|
7.3
|
482,118
|
Mike Huckabee
|
R
|
4
|
395,910
|
Rick Santorum
|
R
|
1
|
240,752
|
Ben Carson
|
R
|
10.2
|
526,669
|
Rand Paul
|
R
|
3.8
|
674,240
|
Lindsey Graham
|
R
|
0.3
|
24,766
|
Jeb Bush
|
R
|
9.8
|
279,516
|
Scott Walker
|
R
|
7.3
|
197,592
|
Marco Rubio
|
R
|
7.3
|
828,483
|
Chris Christie
|
R
|
3.5
|
43,600
|
Rick Perry
|
R
|
1.3
|
314,584
|
Bobby Jindal
|
R
|
0.5
|
211,195
|
Carly Fiorina
|
R
|
6
|
467,419
|
John Kasich
|
R
|
4.5
|
100,335
|
George Pataki
|
R
|
0
|
46,912
|
Jim Gilmore
|
R
|
0
|
1,133
|
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