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).
Pinging my pinglist. Let me know by Freepmail if you want on (or off)
I love the “nicknames” that President Trump gives his opponents.
However, when an opponent is named “Vermin Supreme” it’s not very challenging to come up with a good, insulting, nickname. hahaha
I'll have more to say on Vermin Supreme later on.
Also, I found it rather amazing that President Trump picked up 641K followers in the past month alone. Trump now has over 54 million followers total and I think those are hard-won followers because I'm sure that Twitter is constantly purging his followers that they deem as fake. Meanwhile, Obama still has 104m followers which is total BS.
I’m not on Twitter, so I can’t follow, but if I were, I would! :-)
You don't have to participate, just follow a few people so you have a customer news feed.
I went a year without doing a single tweet. I just signed up to follow Donald Trump and have his tweets sent to my phone as text messages.
Not belonging to FB, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, or any other social media is part of my world-view. I am just that rebellious! Ha Ha. Anyway, I appreciate your hard work compiling this data for us Luddites. :-)
<><> social media censorship,
<><>tax-paid abortion on demand,
<><>impeaching Trump,
<><>raising our taxes!
And we should encourage Obama, Michele, Chelsea, Kamala, Maxine and Nancy to take the show on the road.
Will be so heart-warming to see the Dems play to "thousands of adoring crowds" (smirk).
This is very interesting. You are right to start early. This could be quite telling. Even if oligarchy-pushed candidates start faking follower #s, you will have evidence of it.
If I am not on your ping list, I’d like to be.
The Prez can call him Jumpin Joe. I still call him by his traditional name, Gropin Joe.
I use twitter to my benefit, not as a feed I read. I just go on and search for what I am wanting that moment to see. Could be a show or game I am watching, could be an event or natural disaster, anything in the news. I love seeing all the different languages when it’s an international event.
I refuse to be tied to “reading a feed” on anything (except maybe FR).
Where’s Warren?
That does seem more apt. I think I will incorporate that nickname starting next month. Trump doesn't have a monopoly on nicknames after all.
You are also now on my ping list.
You are also now on my ping list.
But thinking upon it, Trump has already pretty much made her a national laughingstock and she knows it which is why she repeatedly states she is not a candidate.
The smoke signals must be telling her it's not in the cards.
In your 1st spreadsheet I think you need to review your calculations, as the ones directly after Donald Trump should have negative numbers denoting the 30 day difference. The ones having negative numbers appear that they should reflect positive gains for the 30 day period. Unless I am reading it wrong.
Never mind I am reading it wrong. I am used to seeing the latest numbers listed last. Not the previous numbers.
So let's talk about Andrew Yang, an official 2020 presidential candidate who picked up the most followers (up 1,487) over the past 30 days (besides Donald Trump who picked up 641,433).
Yang is a Democrat who is 43 years old. He did an FEC filing for the 2020 presidential election back on November 6, 2017. His main campaign platform is a universal basic income for all Americans between the ages of 18 to 64 of $1,000/mo, which is euphemistically called a "Freedom Dividend."
His campaign slogan is "Humanity First".
Born in Schenectady, NY to Taiwan born parents, Yang's main claim to fame is the creation of the non-profit VFA (Venture for America) in 2011 which is dedicated to create opportunity in urban U.S. cities by finding potential entrepreneurs and funding them with the skills and resources to create jobs.
The intentions seem to be good here but seven years later, VFA claims to only have started 29 companies while creating 2,500 jobs in the process on an annual budget of approximately $6,000,000 (as of 2017). Yang has since stepped down from VFA, obstentiously to focus on his 2020 campaign.
Those seem rather inconclusive results for VFA after seven years of operation and probably more of a "resume building" endeavor for Yang than anything else. But Yang has the "minority" chops that the Democrats value so much and he was certainly a darling of Barack Obama.
Andrew Yang's net worth was not available after an internet search and I assume it's not very much. His father worked in the research labs of IBM and General Electric and has 69 patents to his name. So it's a safe bet that Andrew Yang is trust-funded to the hilt and has daddy's money to fall back on. If not, he can always live on his universal income should it ever come to be.
Right now, I do not see Andrew Yang as a major factor in the 2020 presidential campaign.
I see where it can be confusing. I’ll reverse the columns in next month’s update.
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