THE YEAR IN ECHOES (AND OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN CONVERSATION)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MICHAEL CORNFIELD AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR LARA BROWN
RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 21, 2016
Using Zignal Labs’ platform, GSPM tracks the mainstream and social media echoes of
the presidential candidates and their campaign messages.
PART ONE
Presidential Chatter
THE “SEMI-VISIBLE” PRIMARY WINNERS?MARCH 15, 2015 – JANUARY 17, 2016Candidates(Alphabetical Order, by Party)
Total Mentions
Net Sentiment
(%, most positive)
Mainstream Media
Mentions
Social Media
Mentions
Website Shares
Echo Conversio
n
Jeb Bush 5 14 3 5 9 12
Ben Carson 6 1 7 6 11 11
Chris Christie 10 12 8 10 12 14
Ted Cruz 4 7 5 4 1 1
Carly Fiorina 9 5 10 9 10 10
Mike Huckabee 12 13 12 12 8 6
John Kasich 11 3 11 11 7 7
Rand Paul 8 11 9 8 4 2
Marco Rubio 7 8 6 7 5 4
Rick Santorum 13 4 14 13 14 3
Donald Trump 1 6 1 1 6 13
Hillary Clinton 2 10 2 2 3 8
Bernie Sanders 3 2 4 3 2 5
Martin O’Malley 14 9 13 14 13 9
THE “SEMI-VISIBLE” PRIMARY WINNERS? MARCH 15, 2015 – JANUARY 17, 2016Republican Candidates(Descending Order)
Winners (total points, lowest points = best)
Democratic Candidates
(Descending Order)
Winners (total
points, lowest
points = best)
Ted Cruz 1 (22 pts.) Bernie Sanders 1 (19 pts.)
Donald Trump 2 (28 pts.) Hillary Clinton 2 (27 pts.)
Marco Rubio 3 (37 pts.) Martin O’Malley 3 (72 pts.)
Rand Paul4 – tie (42 pts.)
Ben Carson4 – tie (42 pts.)
Jeb Bush 5 (48 pts.)
John Kasich 6 (50 pts.)
Carly Fiorina 7 (53 pts.)
Rick Santorum 8 (61 pts.)
Mike Huckabee 9 (63 pts.)
Chris Christie 10 (66 pts.)
Candidates(Descending Order)
Total MentionsMarch 15, 2015 – January 17, 2016
All Current Candidates
(share of voice, in %)
Republicans Only (share of voice,
in %)
Donald Trump 57,427,624 37.7 54.2Hillary Clinton 24,550,084 16.1 --Bernie Sanders 20,993,263 13.7 --Ted Cruz 12,645,053 8.3 11.9Jeb Bush 7,770,771 5.1 7.3Ben Carson 6,571,776 4.3 6.2Marco Rubio 5,473,165 3.6 5.2Rand Paul 4,499,443 3.0 4.3Carly Fiorina 3,234,045 2.1 3.1Chris Christie 2,940,475 1.9 2.8John Kasich 2,228,874 1.5 2.1Mike Huckabee 2,070,280 1.4 2.0Rick Santorum 1,054,703 0.7 1.0Martin O’Malley 820,495 0.5 1.8
CONVERSATION LEADERS
TRUMP DOMINATED
05
10152025303540
All Candidates Share of Voice (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
CLINTON & TRUMP
53%
45%
2%
Democratic Share of Voice (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
Clinton Sanders O'Malley
8%
6%
3%
12%
3%
2%2%
4%
5%1%
54%
Republican Share of Voice (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
Bush Carson Christie Cruz Fiorina Huckabee
Kasich Paul Rubio Santorum Trump
DEMOCRATIC TIME SERIES
4/12: Clinton announces
10/11: Sanders “MTP”
12/13: Sanders in IA “Weekend of Action”
1/10: Sanders new WSJ/NBC poll showing tight IA race
DEMOCRATIC NET SENTIMENT
Note: Net sentiment is measured as the percentage of positive mentions minus the percentage of negative mentions (similar to “net approval” or “net favorability”). Still, NLP does not capture sentiment all that indiscriminately. As such, sarcasm (“that’s sick”), disappointment (“that sucks”), or even descriptive facts (“drops out”) may be included in the mentions count. Net sentiment should, therefore, be seen as a directional and relational indicator rather than an absolute measure.
-30.0 -20.0 -10.0 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0
Clinton
Sanders
O'Malley
Net Sentiment of Democratic Candidate Mentions (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
REPUBLICAN TIME SERIES
Note: Legend omits Mike Huckabee (˜2M mentions) & Rick Santorum (˜1M mentions).
12/6: Trump Muslim ban
8/23: Trump on “FTN”
3/23: Cruz announces
REPUBLICAN NET SENTIMENT
-25.0 -20.0 -15.0 -10.0 -5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0
Bush
Carson
Christie
Cruz
Fiorina
Huckabee
Kasich
Paul
Rubio
Santorum
Trump
Net Sentiment of Republican Candidate Mentions (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
Note: Net sentiment is measured as the percentage of positive mentions minus the percentage of negative mentions (similar to “net approval” or “net favorability”). Still, NLP does not capture sentiment all that indiscriminately. As such, sarcasm (“that’s sick”), disappointment (“that sucks”), or even descriptive facts (“drops out”) may be included in the mentions count. Net sentiment should, therefore, be seen as a directional and relational indicator rather than an absolute measure.
DEMOCRATS: WHO IS TALKING ABOUT WHOM?
Candidates Mainstream Media
March 15, 2015–
January 17, 2016
Social Media
March 15, 2015–
January 17, 2016
Hillary Clinton 2,904,724 22,142,360
Bernie Sanders 946,176 20,047,087
Martin O’Malley 299,421 521,074
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
Clinton Sanders O'Malley
Tota
l Men
tions
Total Media Mentions March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
Mainstream Media Social Media
REPUBLICANS: WHO IS TALKING ABOUT WHOM?
Candidates Mainstream Media
March 15, 2015-
January 17, 2016
Social Media
March 15, 2015-
January 17, 2016
Jeb Bush 1,278,863 6,491,908Ben Carson 822,954 5,748,822Chris Christie 547,942 2,392,533Ted Cruz 942,931 11,702,122Carly Fiorina 466,409 2,767,636Mike Huckabee 326,490 1,743,790John Kasich 354,065 1,874,809Rand Paul 538,738 3,992,459Marco Rubio 889,780 4,583,385Rick Santorum 177,156 877,547Donald Trump 2,844,943 54,582,681
Trump: Off the chart again (see table)
0.00
2,000,000.00
4,000,000.00
6,000,000.00
8,000,000.00
10,000,000.00
12,000,000.00
14,000,000.00
Tota
l Men
tions
Total Media MentionsMarch 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
Mainstream Media Social Media
PART TWO
Social media activity by the candidates and their
campaigns.
TRUMP ON TOP?ECHO CONVERSION RATES
Candidates (Descending Order)
Echo Conversion (total number of website shares/total number of social media mentions, in % for March 15, 2015 – January 17, 2016)
Ted Cruz 5.0
Rand Paul 3.7
Rick Santorum 2.9
Marco Rubio 2.8
Bernie Sanders 2.2
Mike Huckabee 2.1
John Kasich 2.0
Hillary Clinton 1.9
Martin O’Malley 1.5
Carly Fiorina 1.1
Ben Carson 0.5
Jeb Bush 0.5
Donald Trump 0.1
Chris Christie nd
Again, Trump is “off the chart.” His social media mentions were over 54M, but his website shares were 61,479 – he comes in second to last on this measure.
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
Social Media Mentions & Website SharesMarch 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
Social Media Mentions Website Shares
CANDIDATES SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITY
0100,000200,000300,000400,000500,000600,000700,000
Social Media Activity of the Candidate/CampaignMarch 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016
Website Shares Top Campaign Tweet (RTs)
Note: Trump did not have one of his own Tweets in the “top Tweet by RT” category. All of the top Tweets involving Trump were negative comments about Trump, and each earned more 30,000 RTs.
QUESTIONS?Graduate School of Political Management
@GSPMGWUJohn BrandtMedia [email protected]
Michael Cornfield Lara BrownAssociate Professor Associate [email protected]
Zignal Labs @ZignalLabs
Pete Eskew D.J. WaldowHead of East Coast Sales Director of [email protected] [email protected]
Top Related