Posted on 05/08/2011 8:31:05 PM PDT by unseen1
The ability for social media participation and activity to predict election results has been widely discussed over the past several months as political campaigns across the country turned to Facebook to communicate authentically with voters as well as organize supporters. But are Facebook fan totals an indicator of how citizens will vote at the polls? Or are Facebook and other social services merely online popularity contests that have no correlation to the real world?
With most of Election Night’s races already decided, the Facebook political team took a look at whether Facebook “likes” did help predict the 2010 House and Senate winners.
The Data
More Fans Equals 74% Winning Percentage in Key House Races
Facebook tracked 98 of the most hotly contested House races, as decided by leading political observers, and 74 percent of the candidates with the most Facebook fans won their races:
· 69 candidates with the most Facebook fans won· 24 candidates with the most Facebook fans lost
· 5 races are still too close to call
More Than 80% of Senate Wins Foreshadowed on Facebook
Just over 82 percent of the 34 Senate races that have been decided were won by the candidate with more Facebook fans:
· 28 candidates with the most Facebook fans won
· 6 candidates with the most Facebook fans lost
· 3 races are still too close to call
House Democrat Incumbents Lost on Facebook Before Losing on Election Day
So far, 46 House Democrat incumbents lost their seats yesterday. More than 78% of those incumbents had fewer Facebook fans than their challengers:
· 36 incumbent House Democrats who lost their seat had fewer fans then their Republican challenger
· 10 incumbent House Democrats who lost their seat had more fans than their Republican challenger
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
As of 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday, 24 of the 34 Senate candidates whose races have been decided have not conceded on Facebook nor have they thanked their supporters on their Facebook pages.
A Tale of Two Races: Facebook Activity for the Winners & Losers
Florida 8th District
The vitriolic House race between incumbent Alan Grayson (D) and challenger Daniel Webster (R) was among the most closely watched races by national political pundits. Grayson’s Facebook presence dwarfed that of Webster’s by a factor of almost nine: 30,000+ fans to 4,600+ fans. But on Election Day, it was a different story. Webster won the seat and his supporters took to Facebook.
More than 500 Webster supporters posted congratulatory messages on his Facebook page in the last day with Webster thanking his supporters: “Tonight, I was privileged to accept the nomination to be your next Congressman. Thank you for all your support and hard work, and I look forward to representing you in Washington!”
Meanwhile, Alan Grayson has not posted any message to his Facebook supporters and more than half of the comments about his final post (a Tuesday morning get-out-the-vote message) were from individuals who support Webster and are reveling in their win. Grayson supporters have penned more than 200 Facebook wall posts in the past 12 hours.
Florida Senate
With the largest Facebook fan tally of any Senatorial candidate (132,000+), Marco Rubio (R) won a hotly contested three-candidate race defeating Kendrick Meek (D) and Gov. Charlie Crist (I). By 9:30 p.m. ET Tuesday night, Rubio posted: “Thank you everyone! We won the Florida U.S. Senate race.” By 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning, nearly 8,000 fans had already responded with comments or by liking Rubio’s victory wall post.
Meek has not posted a message to his supporters but a little over 100 have responded to his final post (a Tuesday afternoon get-out-the-vote message). In addition, Crist conceded at 10 p.m. ET last night on Facebook: “Thank you @TeamCrist for a great effort! Hope to see you soon. Congratulations to Marco Rubio and his team….” Crist has received responses from more than 600 supporters.
This is for those that say facebook is meaningless.
bttt
Cool. Sarah’s been gaining between 150 to 200 likes per hour since her Madison address. It would be interesting to know the like rates for the others. I strongly suspect she is leaving them well behind in her dust trail.
Obama has 20,159,845 who like his page, so they all have alot of catching up.
http://www.facebook.com/barackobama
True Obama has 20 million to Sarah’s 2 million (almost 3 million) but Obama is the President of the United States so of course he is going to have more friends. He is still way short of the 54 million that elected him. Once Sarah announces she will gain and get pretty close to what President Obama has for “likes”. Anyway, it is not going to be easy to beat Obama no matter what folks claim here but Sarah is our chance to make this happen....at least she will fight to the bitter end.
What percentage of voters over age 55 have Facebook pages?
What percentage of voters are over 45?
What percentage of voters are over 55?
Just sayin..........
Yes Obama seems to be in the drivers seat here but to make a better comparision we would have to look at Obama’s “friends” before winning the nomination and before winning the POTUS to get a better comparision of apples to apples.
and yet the number of Facebook “friends” predicted more than 70% of the 2010 races....just saying..... I think you might be surprised at the amount of those 35-55 that have facebook pages.
Last I heard there were more than 300 million users of it. that isn’t all young people.
I’M 72, I do.
Incorrect. Paul has 155,766 fans.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/ronpaul12
349,196
http://www.facebook.com/ronpaul
looks like the one I quoted in my above post was an unofficial page. Like yours. there are many fan pages for Paul like Palin. I thought I had his official one. it looks like it wa "his" personal page not his campaign page.
You can think that it is not important and that it is a tool for the young but the facts show you are not correct. Sometimes when facts are presented that call into question your long held opinions you need to change your opinions to confirm with the facts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.