Posted on 09/01/2018 2:09:26 PM PDT by SamAdams76
This is a monthly posting of Twitter follower growth for the past month for 2020 presidential candidates.
Yes, it's still early to be doing this. But I want to get a few months of data behind me before the 2020 Presidential campaign kicks off in earnest this coming spring.
In the meantime, it will be fun (for some of us) to start gauging who the contenders might be in 2020. So what I'm doing here is taking a snapshot of Twitter followers for each of these possible challengers to President Trump and seeing what the growth is month-over-month. This is very unscientific of course but I feel that Twitter growth in followers is a very strong indicator of candidate "velocity" and we certainly saw that in 2016, when it was Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and the eventual winner Donald Trump who month after month saw the highest growth in followers.
My 2016 tracking showed "front-runners" like Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio with rather tepid Twitter follower growth months before they eventually dropped out of the race.
So I think this "unscientific" survey has some merit.
Now my original intent with this was to only track candidates who have actually formally announced or filed with the FEC as I figure that if they go through the trouble to file paperwork to run, they should be given the respect to make my monthly survey. However, others complained because obvious candidates (who haven't announced yet) like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, etc., were not being tracked.
So starting in October, I will start tracking them too. For September, what I did was take a snapshot (of Twitter followers) as a baseline for October and I will include that chart further below. After 30 days, I will start tracking them as well but will keep them in black font and put in red font those who actually have officially entered the race. For the purposes of that, I have included every notable public figure who have mentioned that they may run for president, including celebrities like Roseanne Barr and Lebron James. As time goes on, I'll start dropping them if it looks like they are not going to run after all.
So with no further ado, here is the current chart of OFFICIAL candidates and their follower growth over the past 30 days (many have actually decreased their follower growth). Way down below, I'll put the chart of unannounced candidates that I will include next month (so just a follower snapshot for now).
I should mention that we already have a dropout - novelist (and Trump-hater) Brad Thor announced on July 5 that he is no longer seeking the 2020 Republican nomination for president. Nobody noticed. Stick to writing novels Brad, we didn't want you as our president anyhow.
As you can plainly see above, President Trump has no serious competition at this point (among the announced candidates). Below, I will give a snapshot of Twitter followers for every individual either running or showing interest in running. My source for this is the Wikipedia article for the 2020 Presidential race as this seems to be the most comprehensive article out there on the 2020 race. I may change my source as time goes on.
Later tonight or over the weekend, I'll reply to this thread with information on some of the official candidates who are running. There's some really interesting individuals out there (who have no chance whatsoever).
Love your work. The only suggestion I have is an additional column for percentage change. Might distinguish the middle of the field better.
I thought of percentage changes but that would definitely skew things on the upper and lower ends. For example, a low-tier candidate going from 500 to 1000 followers (net gain of 500) would show a 100% increase where Donald Trump going from 53.4m to 54.1 m (net gain of 700,000) would reflect just over a 1% increase. I just thought that would not be an accurate reflection of “velocity” - which to me is sheer number of people who follow your campaign on Twitter.
Interesting metric. Thanks for your work. BUMP!
Keeping the ranking by the raw count difference is good. I was thinking more of the middle of the field. The percentages might show momentum for someone at the middle better than raw count would. You are right, though, +500 for Joe Blow would be a much bigger percent increase than the same +500 for Trump. I would just use it as an additional data point. But then you would probably get a ton of questions about it. Your judgement is best.
Oh I just need to read better. 8>)
Let's discuss Arvin Vohra, the Libertarian candidate who gained 717 followers this past month.
Arvin is 39 years old and from Maryland. In addition to being an announced candidate for the 2020 presidential election, Arvin is also a Libertarian candidate for the 2018 Maryland senatorial election.
In 2010, Arvin ran for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates (15th District) and finished dead last with 2% of the vote. In 2012, Arvin ran for Maryland's 5th Congressional District and finished dead last with 1.31% of the vote.
Finally, Arvin ran for Maryland's 4th Congressional District in 2014 and (as you might have guessed) finished dead last with 1.46% of the vote.
Arvin Vohra's claim to fame is the "Vohra Method", which uses non-linear worksheets to prep students for college-entrance exams. What this basically means is that when a student gets an answer wrong in a practice test, the student is run through a checklist to identify what skills need to be improved for better results next time. So if the student missed a factoring step in a math problem, the student is assigned a factoring worksheet to master that particular skill. Vohra founded a company to help students with college-entry exams.
Arvin Vohra was Vice Chair of the Libertarian National Committee but was not re-elected in part for controversial views that included sexual relations with minors, abolishing public schools and referring to the military as "paid killers."
I could not find a net worth for Arvin Vohra.
My conclusion is that Arvin Vohra is a fringe candidate with minimal appeal and does not pose a serious threat to the re-election of President Trump.
So John Delaney wants to be your president. On July 28, 2017, Delaney became the first major Democrat to file for the 2020 presidential race and has also filed officially with the FEC.
Delaney, 55 years old, currently represent's Maryland's 6th Congressional District (since 2013). He is of Irish descent and was raised in New Jersey. He is a graduate of Columbia University with a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He has a blue-collar pedigree as his father was an electrician
He co-founded two companies. Health Care Financial partners in 1993, created to make loans available to smaller health-care providers who might have trouble securing loans from larger banks. In 1999, this company was sold to Heller Financial.
In 2000, he co-founded Capital Source, a commercial lender that provides capital to small and medium sized businesses. This company was acquired by PacWest Bancorp is still in operation today as a division of Pacific Western Bank.
John Delaney's net worth is estimated to be in excess of $90 million, making him the 4th richest person in Congress.
With regard to political views, Delaney is regarded as a "moderate" in Democrat circles. However a closer look shows his is pro-abortion (and gets a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood) and in 2017, voted against a bill that would make abortions illegal on fetuses over 20 weeks old. A supporter of same-sex marriage, he also supports the legalization of cannabis. Delaney is also fully aboard the "climate change" bandwagon and supports taxes to that end. A detailed article on all his political positions can be seen here. Basically John Delaney is solidly to the left on most issues, though he is actively cultivating "moderate" status in his presidential campaign.
It is difficult at this time to determine how serious a candidate Delaney will be once the campaign gets rolling and other big names jump in. Sometime it pays off to get in early and Delaney picked up 341 Twitter followers over the last month to a total of 11,038, making him the third highest gainer in followers this cycle. But compare that to Trump gaining over 640,000 followers during the same period and you can see Delaney has a long way to go momentum-wise.
My take is that Delaney has a good a shot as any for securing the Democrat nomination. Compared to the left-wing nutjobs we are about to see run, he will be able to position himself more to the center and thus be a very presentable option for many centrist Democrats. He got in early so should be able to gather some first rate resources in terms of campaign personnel and organization. He's got some personal wealth and seems to be a solid citizen type. So while it is still early, John Delaney is a man to be watched.
Adam Kokesh picked up 150 followers during August and has amassed 53,242 to date. Adam is the first Libertarian to announce for the presidency in the 2020 campaign and is 36 years old. Let's talk about Adam.
Adam's platform is pretty simple: Dissolving the federal government.
Upon his inauguration, should we elect him, he will issue his first and final executive order to "peacefully" dissolve the federal government. He will then resign from the presidency and assign himself the title "Custodian of the Federal Government." He would then assign "Custodians" for each of the departments of government who would then work to dissolve each of them.
That's about it folks. Adam Kokesh's presidency would be a very brief one but highly productive, depending on your point of view.
Like myself, Adam joined the United States Marine Corps and attained the rank of sergeant. That's where our similarities end. Kokesh served in the Iraq War and participated in the First Battle of Fallujah. While in Iraq, Adam learned Arabic. He also attained a degree in psychology Claremont McKenna College.
Upon his discharge from the Marine Corps in 2007, Adam became increasingly radicalized in his political beliefs. He became an active participant in the "Iraq Veterans Against the War" group, involving himself in various protests, flash mobs and acts of civil disobedience, including filming himself loading a shotgun in Washington DC and posting it on YouTube (which as you can probably deduce, did not end well).
Speaking of things that didn't end well, Adam announced his candidacy for president on January 16, 2018. By the end of that day, he was pulled over by Texas police twice, the second time being arrested for possession of marijuana and other "unidentified substances" as well as "tampering/fabricating" evidence in a police investigation.
Adam was no stranger to being arrested and jailed, as there are several other arrests on his rap sheet ranging from drug charges to weapons charges to "dancing a jig" outside the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Yes, I looked that one up. It is actually illegal to dance at national monuments in DC.
Some of Adam Kokesh's political positions are as follows: Government should be abolished; taxation is theft; is anti-abortion; and is an advocate of "self-ownership" in which each person owns himself.
In 2010, Adam ran as a Republican for Congress in the 3rd District of New Mexico. In the primary, he received nearly 30% of the vote. Adam also has a talk radio show called "Adam vs The Man" which is (or was) available in a variety of formats (podcast; web-access, Facebook and a brief stint on AM radio in NM).
In summary, Adam Kokesh is a fringe candidate, albeit colorful, and has pretty much a zero chance for the presidency and likely won't make much of an impact with the Libertarian ticket either. He does have a webpage setup for his candidacy.
His number of followers is impressive so he does have a small following - probably from his talk show. He only gained 150 followers over the past month so not much momentum has built yet.
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Adam doesn’t really sound very libertarian to me.
Excepting the “Deep State” criminals, the federal government has been no worse than most of the state governments (Texas and Florida possibly excepted) WRT our liberties.
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