Talia Wlcek
#DemsOnTwitter: What's Popular for Presidential Candidates on the Platform?
With a following of over 10 million, Bernie Sanders leads the pack of Democratic presidential candidates when it comes to Twitter followers. Interestingly, however, many of his counterparts’ tweets have more favorites and retweets.
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The last 3,200 tweets from each Democratic presidential campaign account (as of November 24, 2019) were analyzed to find out what exactly is the most popular content on the platform, measuring this with the number of likes a tweet receives.
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So who’s the most popular on Twitter?
As the chart above shows, Bernie Sanders has the most Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates. Cory Booker comes in second with 4.4 million followers, and Joe Biden is third with just shy of 4 million.
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“I think that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have the best presence on Twitter,” Hannah Correll, a media and journalism student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said. “Bernie Sanders is responsive on both his professional and personal Twitter, but remains well-spoken on both.”
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Sanders was also mentioned as a favorite on Twitter for two other UNC-Chapel Hill students interviewed, Caitlyn Wallace and Gabriela Duncan.
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“Sometimes it feels like Democrats are nervous to support a cause full-fledged because they may not get support but I feel like Bernie doesn’t care if it isn’t as popular to have a certain view,” Wallace, a senior sociology and human development and family studies student, said on why she likes the candidate. “He just wants everyone to have fair and equal access to a lot of things that they don’t currently.”
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Biden was also noted by interviewees as having a less favorable Twitter presence. Duncan noted that Biden’s language in his tweets doesn’t really resonate with younger people on the platform, specifically mentioning the word “malarkey.” Additionally, she feels that there are a number of memes that portray the candidate in a negative light as well.
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“I think that the biggest appeal to Biden is that he is not Trump,” she said. “He does not necessarily have any other redeeming qualities.”
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However, popularity may not be accurately measured based on followers alone. Out of each candidate’s last 3,200 tweets, the top 100 of those with the most likes were analyzed to see what followers engaged with most.
Even though Biden has less than half of Sanders’ following, his tweets tend to get a lot more engagement. Of the tweets on the top 100 list, 42 came from the former vice president.
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Kamala Harris is next on the list, but only 15 of her tweets made their way onto the list, a significantly smaller number than Biden. And Sanders, despite having the most followers, comes in third with 13 tweets.
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So, if having the most followers does not make a candidate the most popular on Twitter, then what does? And what types of tweets are the most popular? The content for each of the top 100 tweets was analyzed, and these are the biggest takeaways about what gets likes:
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Tweets about Donald Trump
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Over half of the top 100 most liked tweets, 58 to be exact, mentioned President Donald Trump either explicitly or by strongly alluding to him. The most-liked tweet on the list, with over half a million, is Kamala Harris’s quip directed at the President’s son, telling him “you wouldn’t know a joke if one raised you.”
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The candidate benefitting most from Trump tweets, though, is Biden. Of his tweets that made the top 100 list, 38 of them either directly or indirectly referenced President Trump. Biden’s most-liked tweet (and the third overall) calls him “the most corrupt president in modern American history.”
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While this may be an effective strategy for gaining likes, however, it may have an adverse effect among potential voters.
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“Interacting with Trump on twitter is an effective way to get some clout,” Duncan observed. “Joe Biden’s campaign is aware of this, but I do not personally believe that it is a good idea to be giving Trump any more attention because it fuels the fire.”
When asked about her thoughts on the popularity of Trump tweets, Correll was also less than surprised, especially when it came to Biden.
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“Trump seems to have something against Biden more than other candidates, which I suspect is due to his involvement in Obama’s presidency,” Correll said. “Biden, as of right now, seems like the party favorite for the Democrats, and Democrats want Trump out of office, so that doesn’t surprise me. Trump is a big enemy right now, so anyone’s tweets against Trump make sense that they are popular.”
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Tweets about Hillary Clinton (if you’re Tulsi Gabbard)
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Tulsi Gabbard has six tweets on the top 100 list, but only one of them was about the president. On the opposite side of the spectrum, her other five tweets are all criticisms of Hillary Clinton, with three of them coming from the same tweet thread. This thread was in response to Clinton’s allegations during an interview that Gabbard may have been working with Russians grooming her to be a third-party candidate in the upcoming 2020 race. The first tweet in the thread even received the second-most likes with almost 300 thousand.
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Tweets about policy ideas (if you’re Bernie Sanders)
Similar to Gabbard, none of Sanders’ most popular tweets were even about Donald Trump. Instead, what is well-liked on Twitter for Sanders seems to be Tweets on his policy ideas. As the Democratic candidate with the most Twitter followers, 13 of his tweets that made the top 100 list, and about half of them were on the senator’s platforms. Four tweets on the list were about taxes or income inequality and three were about healthcare (including one about abortion), two policy points that the candidate is well-known for.
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“I know ‘socialism’ has a bit of a stigma but when analyzing my political and social views I often find that they align in that direction, and I like that Bernie’s views embrace that side unapologetically,” Wallace said on why she likes the candidate.
Making jokes
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Among these other trends, unsurprisingly, Twitter users love a good joke. Cory Booker’s most popular tweet on the list is a gif zooming in on his face during one of the Democratic debates that he Tweeted in response to Gabbard’s aforementioned thread about Hillary Clinton. Similarly, one of Amy Klobuchar’s tweets on the list is a video of activist Greta Thunberg glaring at Donald Trump with the caption “Same.”
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Lighthearted moments
Lastly, another theme that stood out was a small (yet still present) number of Tweets that were more fun and lighthearted. One of Sanders’ most popular tweets is two photos of him with singer Ariana Grande, commending her for her commitment to social justice.
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So why does Twitter even matter?
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Every November 2020 presidential candidate from a major party is on Twitter. It’s an important tool in today’s political arena for its ability to reach a wide audience instantly.
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An article from the social media management platform Hootsuite reported that in 2018, 40% of adults on Twitter in the United States were between the ages of 18 and 29. Coincidentally, voter turnout for this age group was at its highest in decades for the 2018 midterms.
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It’s safe to say that young adults have a voice in today’s democracy, and many of them are turning to Twitter for updates on candidates.
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“I follow candidates on Twitter because I love politics and think it is very important to understand political candidates and their platform,” Correll said. “Given the current presidential situation, I think more now than ever, it is important that candidates remain professional on social media since it has become such a large part of their image in recent years.”
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Duncan said that she likes to follow candidates because it gives her a better idea of their platforms and how consistent their messages are in person versus online.
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She elaborated on this, saying “For example, when Elizabeth Warren talks about Native Americans a lot in her platform and on mainstream media but then only Tweets about it a few times and seems to keep her mouth shut on some events, then I will lose trust in her.”
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Wallace said that she enjoys using Twitter to stay up to date with her preferred candidates.
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“They post in response to when major events are happening so that you hear their opinion and voice in response to important issues,” she said.
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What can candidates do to either gain or keep support from these audiences? Interviewees mentioned a number of things: posting frequently, behaving sincerely and responding to newsworthy events. However, one action was mentioned specifically by all of them: Tweeting about what they plan to do if elected president.
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“Giving solid reasons and facts about why they are the best candidate to beat Trump in 2020 is extremely important,” Correll said. “The youngest voter generation is as politically active as ever, and I think it is vital for candidates to be concise, yet informative to appeal to their Twitter followers.”
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Duncan echoed this in her statement, saying that the best Twitter strategy to her consists of “tweets that represent a candidates views and support their platform.”
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“This content gives followers a short and sweet glimpse of what a candidate believes,” Duncan elaborated.
In an age where more and more news is consumed online, tweets serve as a modern-day equivalent to a sound bite. A few decades ago, sound bites were a way for candidates to get their opinions across about a certain topic. Rather than replaying an entire speech or clip from an interview, short sound bites were used to summarize key points said by the candidate in a few seconds.
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Short and sweet is perhaps the best summary of what sets Twitter apart from other platforms. At only 280 characters, users have limited space to get their point across compared to other methods like Facebook that allow for longform answers. The ability to utilize these characters to one’s advantage is proving to be even more critical in today’s political landscape.
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However, candidates need to remember that support online does not equate to support in the voting booth. The most effective candidates use communication methods like Twitter not only to explain information to supporters, but to mobilize them as well.