Four years ago I looked at local and national candidates' Facebook and Twitter followings and how they corresponded to their election results. Then, the candidate's Facebook followings predicted the winner in 8 of 9 races I looked at. In 2018, Facebook followings only predicted the winner in 5 out of the 9 races I looked at. This year I thought I would take break from Coronavirus and take a look at local candidates' Social media followings on Twitter and Facebook.
RCP Avg % |
Facebook Following |
Twitter Following |
|
Biden (D) |
50.8 |
3,264,947 |
11,373,690 |
Trump (R) |
42.8 |
30,388,485 |
87,335,714 |
Jorgenson (L) |
2.5 |
475,414 |
172,827 |
Hawkins (G) |
0.8 |
28,834 |
62,771 |
The first contested election in the area is of course the Presidential. I only found the candidates national Facebook and Twitter pages so I will compare their national pages to their national poll averages from Real Clear Politics. The table above shows that Biden considerable lags behind Trump in Facebook and Twitter followings but is ahead in the national poll averages. Biden's social media presence has not increased by much since the primaries.
Facebook Following |
Twitter Following |
||
Joyce (R) |
2,363 |
1,670 |
|
Rowley (D) |
991 |
7,514 |
|
Facebook
Following |
Twitter
Following |
|
Dougherty
(D) |
|
990 |
5,681 |
Langerholc
(R) |
|
1,770 |
273 |
Facebook
Following |
Twitter
Following |
||
Burns
(D) |
3,277 |
1,782 |
|
Terndrup
(R) |
590 |
63 |