Posted on 09/01/2019 10:59:35 AM PDT by SamAdams76
This is a monthly tabulation of Twitter follower growth for the past month for 2020 presidential candidates in which I reveal who - of the presidential candidates - attracted the most new followers in the month of AUGUST 2019!
I'm tracking over 50+ candidates, including a lot of fringe candidates, including those running for third parties such as Libertarian, Green and even Prohibition. But to keep things clean, I only post the Top 20.
During the month of August, President Trump gained over 1.2 million followers for a total of nearly 64 million followers.
The closest any other candidate came was Elizabeth Warren, who gained about 180,000 new followers last month. This is now her second straight month as the top follower-getter for Democrats and I think it is safe to say based on this that she is now the "front-runner" for the Democrat party.
Bernie Sanders is coming up strong with 169,000 new followers and a total of 9.6 million, making him the closest to Trump in terms of TOTAL Twitter followers.
Surprisingly, Andrew Yang, the "$1,000-a-month" guy who thinks we all should move to higher ground NOW is right behind Pocahontas and Bernie with 161,000 new followers for August. Yang has had a strong showing for several months now in gaining Twitter followers, no doubt due in part that at one time, he was offering random cash prizes for people who followed him.
NOBODY else in the Democrat field even came close to gaining 100,000 new followers. Joe Biden gained an anemic 66,000 new followers and is now in 6th place on my chart.
Major Democrats not making my Top 20 include Bill de Blasio and Beto O'Rourke. Beto only gained 841 new followers last month and his campaign appears to be in its death spiral. Look for him to drop out soon, likely after the next round of debates.
On the Republican side, Joe Walsh, the recently announced challenger picked up just over 44,000 new followers in August. Enough to break into the Top 10. The other Republican to make my list was Bill Weld, who is at number 20.
Stacey Abrams is not an official candidate but I'm keeping her on the list as she continues to build followers at a steady clip. Also, she's frequently mentioned as a running mate for whoever survives the Democrat nomination as she's from the South and hits a lot of minority buckets - that the Democrats just love to focus on.
President Trump is looking strong. Very strong. Four years ago, I was motivated to start this Twitter tracking thing based on the fact that Trump was already racking up huge follower growth - way more than his competitors including even Hillary and Bernie. Thus, in the summer of 2015, I was already projecting Trump to be the Republican nominee and our likely next president. During a time when nobody thought Trump had a chance.
On the Democrat side, I am quite surprised to see Warren as the front-runner now. Listening to her is like nails on a chalkboard and I think she's even more tone deaf and out of touch with common folk than Hillary. She's also got a lot of baggage that her opponents are going to have to exploit soon, before she gets up too much a head of steam.
Joe Biden is fading quickly. Reminds of of Jeb Bush four years ago, who even at this time was considered a likely nominee. But Jeb's follower growth during the summer of 2015 was fading and to me that was the tipoff that he had little real momentum behind him - he was just a stooge being pushed by the establishment elite.
In conclusion, this is shaping up as an interesting race on the Democrat side. The establishment darlings like Biden, Harris and Booker are not catching fire. Once again, Bernie looks to play the role of spoiler and Pocahontas is certainly a surprise. I did not think she'd make it this far several months ago.
Great additional comment and thanks for your work on this list.
When analyzing the data, the question rises. Which is the better indicator, the value "T" representing total followers or the value "ΔT" the change in the total number of followers.
At this point, I would argue that since the Gray Beaver value of "T" is significantly less than others, the % growth of ΔT should not be the measure of her standing. There is no question her popularity is increasing but she is still far behind bernie. She is gaining on Biden but is not there yet.
——I hadn’t thought of overseas support. -——
It can be argued that the overseas followers are not supporter but rather curious observers who check out the up to the minute tweets rather than CNN International
I have to wonder who is promoting the clown known as Joe Walsh.
For example, Michael Bennet, who most people have never heard of, had the highest percentage of follower growth this month (25.71%) simply by increasing his followers by 10,000.
Trump "only" had 2% follower growth for August but that represents over 1,200,000 new followers.
I agree.
True Bert. That same dynamic can be argued for citizens too.
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