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Image from Mother Jones article on Cambridge Analytica |
The Cambridge Analytica (CA) story may have fallen on the back burner because of the March for Our Lives (rightly) and Stormy Daniels (wrongly). Mother Jones magazine published a detailed chronology of how it became involved in the 2016 election. First they were partnered with Ted Cruz's campaign. They claimed credit for his winning Iowa and finishing second overall in the delegate count. Mother Jones reports that CA used the data in 2015 for Cruz's campaign to make psychographic profiles of users from the data from 50 million Facebook profiles.. Because Steve Bannon was on Cambridge Analytica's board, it was brought on to the Trump campaign.
At the same time in 2015 I was keeping track of the Facebook followings of the Presidentical candidates. Below is a table I compiled on May 23, 2015 from each candidate's Facebook page such as the number of followers, the the most common city on their page from their followers, and the most popular age group on his page. Donald Trump hadn't announced his campaign yet. Lincoln Chafee had no Facebook page.
Four of the GOP candidates pages were receiving traffic from Houston, TX while three of the Democrats were receiving it from New York City. For three of the four GOP Houston candidates, their traffic was coming from users 65 and older. About this time Cambridge Analytica was working for Cruz's campaign. When I looked at the Facebook pages of pundits in January 2015, Houston was the most popular city of conservative pundits (10 out of 17) I looked at.
Party
|
candidate
|
Followers as a Pres Candidate
|
Most Popular City Since Becoming Candidate
|
Most Popular Age Group as Candidate
|
Dem
|
Hillary Clinton
|
839,186
|
New York, NY
|
25-34
|
Bernie Sanders
|
477,839
|
New York, NY
|
55+
|
Martin O'Malley
|
65,714
|
Baltimore, MD
|
25-34
|
Lincoln Chafee
|
.
|
|
.
|
Joe Biden
|
823,846
|
New York, NY
|
25-34
|
Jim Webb
|
21,489
|
Washington, DC
|
19-24
|
GOP
|
Ted Cruz
|
1,244,398
|
Houston, TX
|
65+
|
Mike Huckabee
|
1,734,080
|
Perth, Australia
|
65+
|
Rick Santorum
|
259,186
|
Pittsburgh, PA
|
45-64
|
Ben Carson
|
1,413,206
|
Houston, TX
|
25-35 and
45-54
|
Rand Paul
|
1,922,875
|
Houston, TX
|
65+
|
Lindsey Graham
|
107,881
|
Columbia, SC
|
65+
|
Jeb Bush
|
176,284
|
Miami, FL
|
65+
|
Scott Walker
|
278,201
|
Milwaukee, WI
|
45-54 and 65+
|
Marco Rubio
|
861,005
|
Miami, FL
|
65+
|
Chris Christie
|
104,166
|
New York, NY
|
35-54
|
Rick Perry
|
1,174,115
|
Houston, TX
|
65+
|
Bobby Jindal
|
239,530
|
Baton Rouge, LA
|
35-54
|
Carly Fiorina
|
55,400
|
Los Angeles, CA
|
45-54
|
John Kasich
|
107,224
|
Columbus, OH
|
45-64
|
In August of that year, the numbers for the candidates had changed with a large gain for Trump in both support and Facebook following. About this time Facebook stopped providing information on the cities and age groups where their pages were most popular. They still provided data on the number of followers who engaged with their page.
Candidate
|
Party
|
Followers
June
|
Gain in
Followers,
June
|
# engaged
June
|
Engage
% June
|
Followers
Aug
|
Gain
Aug
|
# Engaged
Aug
|
%
Engage
Aug
|
Engage
change
Aug-Jun
|
Real
Clear
Politics
Avg
|
Hillary Clinton
|
D
|
871449
|
32263
|
164721
|
0.19
|
1209179
|
337730
|
327399
|
0.27
|
0.08
|
49.3
|
Bernie Sanders
|
D
|
530262
|
52423
|
136772
|
0.26
|
1225552
|
695290
|
355980
|
0.29
|
0.03
|
25
|
Martin O'Malley
|
D
|
70478
|
4764
|
15535
|
0.22
|
76953
|
6475
|
3675
|
0.05
|
-0.17
|
1.7
|
Lincoln Chafee
|
D
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Joe Biden
|
D
|
831968
|
8122
|
8998
|
0.01
|
841644
|
9676
|
1596
|
0
|
-0.01
|
12
|
Jim Webb
|
D
|
21745
|
256
|
2366
|
0.11
|
30544
|
8799
|
9956
|
0.33
|
0.22
|
1.3
|
|
Donald Trump
|
R
|
1792016
|
113658
|
53880
|
0.03
|
3282608
|
1490592
|
743935
|
0.23
|
0.2
|
22
|
Ted Cruz
|
R
|
1249160
|
4762
|
134836
|
0.11
|
1385876
|
136716
|
242349
|
0.17
|
0.06
|
7.3
|
Mike Huckabee
|
R
|
1743599
|
9519
|
231343
|
0.13
|
1827423
|
83824
|
415975
|
0.23
|
0.1
|
4.3
|
Rick Santorum
|
R
|
261168
|
1982
|
17289
|
0.07
|
264796
|
3628
|
11625
|
0.04
|
-0.03
|
1
|
Ben Carson
|
R
|
1487589
|
74383
|
168658
|
0.11
|
2418003
|
930414
|
869374
|
0.36
|
0.25
|
9.7
|
Rand Paul
|
R
|
2001304
|
78429
|
281904
|
0.14
|
2060430
|
59126
|
122158
|
0.06
|
-0.08
|
4.3
|
Lindsey Graham
|
R
|
111795
|
3914
|
10982
|
0.1
|
130110
|
18315
|
5621
|
0.04
|
-0.06
|
0.3
|
Jeb Bush
|
R
|
178172
|
1888
|
4681
|
0.03
|
250731
|
72559
|
30841
|
0.12
|
0.09
|
10.7
|
Scott Walker
|
R
|
283102
|
4901
|
24483
|
0.09
|
359444
|
76342
|
40554
|
0.11
|
0.02
|
7.7
|
Marco Rubio
|
R
|
874898
|
13893
|
83916
|
0.1
|
978401
|
103503
|
54927
|
0.06
|
-0.04
|
7.3
|
Chris Christie
|
R
|
104785
|
619
|
3014
|
0.03
|
118868
|
14083
|
8055
|
0.07
|
0.04
|
3.3
|
Rick Perry
|
R
|
1183094
|
8979
|
40992
|
0.03
|
1208938
|
25844
|
17278
|
0.01
|
-0.02
|
1.3
|
Bobby Jindal
|
R
|
243034
|
3504
|
5174
|
0.02
|
277777
|
34743
|
23878
|
0.09
|
0.07
|
0.7
|
Carly Fiorina
|
R
|
60165
|
4765
|
12713
|
0.21
|
281637
|
221472
|
86799
|
0.31
|
0.1
|
6.3
|
John Kasich
|
R
|
107703
|
479
|
7320
|
0.07
|
138213
|
30510
|
17159
|
0.12
|
0.05
|
0.3
|
George Pataki
|
R
|
15391
|
|
4512
|
29
|
18330
|
2939
|
6892
|
0.38
|
-28.62
|
0.1
|
The story about Cambridge Analytica and what I found looking at the candidate's campaign pages appear to correspond. I was looking at publicly available data on Facebook usage and polling from Real Clear Politics. Obviously I did not have access to the same data as Cambridge Analytica but I was able to glean that something was going on.
Cambridge Analytica was not able to help Cruz overtake Trump in the primaries. It is debatable how much assistance they were to Trump in the general election but the fact that Trump won the electoral college vote (while losing the popular vote by 3 million) is all the validation they need. They also assisted in winning the Brexit vote in 2016 for which they are also under investigation. Below is a communications professor suing CA for the data they may have on him.
**Update**
The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wiley was interviewed on Amanpour on PBS about the what CA was up to. It's a gripping interview which is in the second half of the show. You'll have to fast forward to get to it.
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