Social Media in the 2010 Election - OhMyGov Inc. Research

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 1

Social Media in the 2010 ElectionBy:

Rebecca Nelson, PhDRichard T. Hartman, PhDAndrew B. Einhorn, M.S.

OhMyGov Inc. Research

September 2010

Abstract

As social media platforms continue their move from fringe to mainstream, elected officials andchallengers to their offices need to understand the impact of social media as they incorporate it intotraditional campaign paradigms. Campaign strategists are quickly learning that even the most carefullyorchestrated campaigns can encounter unexpected pitfalls or boosts thanks to bloggers, Facebook fansand other vocal social media followers. Grassroots movements often begin and end on social media,making it all the more important that strategists analyze social media metrics regularly. Byunderstanding and predicting social media, one can track a candidate’s or political party’s popularity onsocial media with respect to competitors as an early indicator of election outcomes. To create a deeperunderstanding of the current political climate leading into the 2010 U.S. Congressional mid-termelections, this paper presents an analysis of social media growth patterns for U.S. House and Senateincumbents of rival political parties. Results from the study indicate that Republican members ofCongress are gaining popularity on social media at faster rates than Democratic members. The trendmay signify that a shift in political power in Congress from Democrats to Republicans is imminent thiselection cycle.


Introduction

Many political analysts believe that the use of social media helped to swing the 2008 Presidential election infavor of Barack Obama. The Obama campaign used social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter togenerate interest in the candidate and his policy ideas with great success. By election day, Obama hadmore than 2 million supporters on Facebook, while his opponent, John McCain, had just over 600,000.On Twitter, Obama directly reached more than 112,000 followers, compared to just 4,600 followers forMcCain.1

The powerful role social media played in shaping Presidential politics during the previous election cycleis not an anomaly. Social media appears destined to play an increasing role in politics and politicalcampaigns, and may one day replace traditional surveys and telephone polling. Today, the social mediaworld is still mysterious, as researchers and campaign managers maneuver to determine if social mediadata may be used to make predictions or to identify trends in public sentiment prior to elections. Researchis needed to determine whether social media data may be used to accurately predict election outcomes,and which metrics are most important for making such determinations. This paper focuses on assessingthe current political climate among voters in the November 2010 U.S. Congressional mid-term elections.

Political pundits have speculated that the Democratic Party will lose their supermajority in Congress, andmay even lose majority control altogether to Republicans. The extent of the power turnover is unknown;the circulating predictions are derived primarily from political polling that may or may not prove accurateso far from the election date. In order to assess whether social media could be used to model the politicalclimate and level of discontent among voters with the controlling political party, this study examinedpatterns in Facebook fan (or “Like”) uptake for members of 111th Congress. There are 435 House ofRepresentative seats and 37 Senate seats being contended in November 2010. We hypothesized that therate at which Facebook fans and friends were being added to a member of Congress’s official Facebookfan page, group, or profile page, could be used as an early indicator of general public support of thatpolitician with respect to his/her opponent. We also hypothesized that aggregated Facebook fan/frienddata could be used to model the level of public support for each of the political parties with respect to oneanother. This information may then be used to indicate whether a shift in political power will arrive in thenext election.

Methodology

From May 1 to August 31, 2010, the count of fans/friends for the official Facebook pages of members ofthe 111th Congress was recorded daily. To ensure data validity, all Facebook pages were individuallyverified as the member’s own official page; pages created by unaffiliated individuals were eliminatedfrom analysis.

Most, but not all, of the current members of the 111th Congress have official Facebook fan pages. In theHouse of Representatives, 251 of the 255 Democratic members (98.4%) and 169 of the 178 Republicanmembers2 (94.9%) were found to have fan pages. On the Senate side, 53 of the 57 Democratic members(92.9%) and 39 of the 41 Republican members (95.1%) were found to have fan pages. (Membersidentifying as Independents were not included in the study).

1 Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta, “Obama's win means future elections must be fought online”, guardian.co.uk, Friday 7November 2008.2 Manning, Jennifer, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Membership of the 111th Congress: A profile, July 19,2010.


To identify the political trends, we used the rate at which fans were added to Facebook fan pages as themeasure of public sentiment. Because we used percent change over time in our analyses rather than totalfans as the metric for analysis, differences in participation rates are minimized.

Data were analyzed using JMP and Statistical Analysis System software. Percent change over time wascalculated across political affiliation as a whole, as well as stratified by chamber (House ofRepresentatives and Senate) and by geographic region. Regional definitions were based on the tenstandard Federal Regions established by OMB Circular A-105, "Standard Federal Regions," in April,1974 and shown in Table 1 below.

Least squares regression models were used to determine statistical changes in Facebook fans over time.Representative affiliation (Democratic vs. Republican), collection date, as well as an interaction term(affiliation*date), were used in the regression model. The interaction term was necessary as affiliationand date each had an effect on one another. Trend lines were used to show increases and/or decreasesacross time.

Table 1: Standard Federal Regions

Region StatesRegion 1 Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, VermontRegion 2 New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, Virgin IslandsRegion 3 Delaware, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, W VirginiaRegion 4 Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, N Carolina, S CarolinaRegion 5 Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, WisconsinRegion 6 Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, TexasRegion 7 Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, NebraskaRegion 8 Colorado, Montana, N Dakota, S Dakota, Utah, WyomingRegion 9 Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Samoa, GuamRegion 10 Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington

Figure 1: Standard Federal Regions


Results

Significant differences in the magnitude of increase in Facebook fans were found between politicalaffiliations over time (p<0.0001), with Republican fans increasing more rapidly than Democratic fans(Figure 2). In addition, Republicans had far more fans overall, with 1,634,127 on May 1 and 2,148,619on August 31 compared to the Democrats who only had 780,035 on May 1 and 952,847 on August 31(Table 2).

Figure 2: Cumulative Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation — All Congress

Table 2: Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation Over Time

Democrats Republicans

FB Fanson 5/1

FB Fanson 8/31 % Chg FB Fans

on 5/1FB Fanson 8/31 % Chg

Higher%

Increasep-value

ALL 780,035 952,847 + 22.2 1,634,127 2,148,619 + 31.5 R <0.0001

House 439,331 554,257 + 26.2 628,085 934,842 + 48.8 R <0.0001Senate 340,704 398,590 + 17.0 1,006,042 1,213,777 + 20.6 NS* 0.1003* NS=Not Significant

Affiliation by Congressional Body


As shown in Figures 3 and 4, when stratified by Congressional body, results varied across politicalaffiliation. For the US House of Representatives, Republican increases surpassed that of Democratssignificantly (p<0.0001). For the US Senate, no significant differences were found across politicalaffiliation (p=0.1003). In each of these cases, however, the total number of Facebook fans was again farhigher for the Republicans than the Democrats (Table 2). This is particularly relevant since there arefewer Republicans currently holding office than there are Democrats.

Figure 3: Cumulative Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation — U.S. House

Figure 4: Cumulative Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation — U.S. Senate

Affiliation by Region


When stratified by region, more regions showed increases in Democratic fans than Republican fans (6 vs.4 regions). Overall however, the magnitude of increase in Facebook fans was again higher for theRepublicans than the Democrats.

Table 3: Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation Over Time by Region

Democrats RepublicansRegion

FB Fanson 5/1

FB Fanson 8/31 % Chg FB Fans

on 5/1FB Fanson 8/31 % Chg

Higher%

Increasep-value

1 62,327 75,631 + 21.3 216,764 244,718 + 12.9 D <0.00012 70,700 91,145 + 28.9 5,233 5,668 + 8.3 D <0.00013 70,741 77,469 + 9.5 41,337 88,958 + 115.2 R <0.00014 95,627 117,864 + 23.3 177,825 243,906 + 37.2 R <0.00015 241,207 286,952 + 19.0 173,580 316,928 + 82.6 R <0.00016 40,631 54,117 + 33.2 307,306 391,544 + 27.4 D <0.00017 19,774 23,994 + 21.3 28,537 45,810 + 60.5 R <0.00018 22,167 27,735 + 25.1 83,161 94,553 + 13.7 D 0.00099 119,991 147,878 + 23.2 589,543 703,846 + 19.4 D <0.000110 32,926 45,782 + 39.0 10,841 12,688 + 17.0 D <0.0001

Figure 5: Political Party Advantage in Facebook Fan Growth Rates by Region

Blue = Democrat; Red = Republican

This overall trend can be explained both by the magnitude of change in the 4 regions in whichRepublicans dominated. This was especially evident in Figure 6 (Region 3: Delaware, DC, Maryland,


Pennsylvania, Virginia, W Virginia) where the Republican Facebook following increased by 115% fromMay 1 to August 31, 2010.

Figure 6: Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation Over Time – Region 3

Discussion

In 2008, it was Democratic candidate Barack Obama whose campaign embraced and leveraged Web 2.0platforms, marking a major departure from traditional political campaigns to the use of online socialnetworks to transform the dynamics of politics. Using sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Obamafollowed former presidential hopeful Howard Dean’s playbook to use social media and the Internet toraise a half of a billion dollars online.3 Interestingly, since the Democrats first experienced success insocial media campaigning, one would possibly expect that Democrats would continue to be the leaderwith new and social media. However, the findings clearly show the Republican Party has not only caughtup but has surpassed the Democrats in their efforts to harness Facebook to their advantage. The degree ofthis advantage varies significantly across regions and is more pronounced in the House of Representativesthan in the Senate.

Given the current political climate of voter discontent with the controlling Democratic Party identified byfalling Congressional approval ratings, as determined by polling,4 the results of this study indicate thatFacebook fan adoption rates may be a useful litmus test for the so-called “political temperature” of thenation. In this case, the litmus test could be understood as Republicans being more energized into actionand/or the Republican causes becoming more favorable to the general public than Democratic ideals.

3 Vargas, Jose Antonio, Obama Raised Half a Billion Online, Washington Post, November 20, 2008.4 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html


One caveat to these findings may be that Republicans, in response to losing political power, may haveworked harder over the study period to enlist more support in an effort to regain power. Thus, results maybe more in keeping with demonstrating marketing success versus a pure measure of political temperature.The latter also may explain the phenomenon of Republicans having more Facebook fans overall and agreater magnitude of increase in fans overall, despite only dominating in 3 of the 10 regions.

Conclusion

In the four years since Facebook was opened to the general public in September 2006, the social networkhas gathered 500 million active users and surpassed Google as the number one website for visitor trafficin the U.S. These statistics and the data used in this study clearly demonstrate that Facebook has become amajor communication and information platform that political candidates and incumbents cannot afford toignore. However, to date, political presence on the web has been deployed with little understanding ofhow to effectively use social media data.

The 2010 mid-term elections provide an opportunity to evaluate the prowess of social media data forpredicting political climate and election outcomes. As voters continue to shift to the web to learn aboutand interact with candidates, this rich data set will grow larger and become more important, warrantingadditional studies to demonstrate its utility for politics and governance.

Whether or not the Facebook trends witnessed in this study will translate into actual voters on electionday remains to be seen, but a logical follow-up study will compare the data set to actual voting results inorder to conclusively determine if social media activity may serve as a predictable model for reality.

For additional data, or to inquire about a study, please contact:[email protected]

p<0.0001

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Social Media in the 2010 Election - OhMyGov Inc. Research