Forget the Rasmussen Poll out today that shows U.S. Sen. Dean Heller nine points ahead of Rep. Shelley Berkley, or the recent ad wars back and forth between the two over ethics. In the battle for social media, Heller is pulling ahead.
On Twitter and Facebook, across myriad pages and accounts, Heller has collected thousands more followers and likes than Berkley. Whether it translates into electoral success or not, the Republican’s web savvy is showing in the numbers.
Heller’s campaign Twitter account (@DeanHeller) has 5,775 followers, dwarfing Berkley’s main campaign Twitter account (@Berkley4Senate), which has 1,091. (Two other Berkley-related accounts, perhaps reserved for the campaign but not really in use, have 22 and 11 followers, respectively.)
Berkley’s official congressional Twitter account (@RepBerkley) does have 3,607 followers, far outpacing Heller’s official Senate account (@SenDeanHeller), which only has 2,986. Then again, Berkley has been in Congress a lot longer than Heller, which his campaign delights in pointing out. (Heller’s former congressional Twitter account — @RepDeanHeller — has a tiny 117 followers.)
Heller — as Berkley’s camp delights in noting — was appointed to the Senate in late April 2011 after the resignation of scandal-plagued John Ensign. He took office in early May 2011, after resigning his seat in the House.
All told, via their various personas on Twitter, Heller has a grand total of 8,878 followers and Berkley boasts 4,731. (Please note that some followers on official and campaign accounts may be duplicates.)
Over on Facebook, Heller also leads, and with fewer pages. Berkley has a personal page (1,997 friends), a group (Shelley Berkley for U.S. Senate 2012, with 257 members), a fan page (Shelley Berkley for Senate, with 2,236 likes) and a little-used campaign page, with 494 likes. Grand total: 4,968 friends and likes.
Heller boasts only a single campaign page, but has collected 9,684 likes on it.
When it comes to official pages, Berkley’s Facebook congressional page has 2,481 likes, which outpaces Heller’s official page, at 1,790.
Now, a person’s savvy on the Internet and ability to collect followers isn’t necessarily indicative of political success (otherwise, Howard Dean would be president and Anthony Weiner would still be in Congress). But as social media increasingly becomes a communication, organizing and fundraising tool, friends, followers and likes will more and more going to be counted as political capital.
Shamless plug alert: BTW, thanks to both Heller and Berkley for following me on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) through both campaign and official accounts!
(Editor’s note: Friends/likes/followers total were current as of the times the pages were visited this afternoon.)
It could be argued our current President won his election in large part due to his tech savvy.
It has been, in fact, stated as such. From mainstream NBC. Among a bunch of others.
cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2008/11/21/4350437-the-wired-white-house?lite
I posted the following in the comments today on your op piece.
You argue extending the Bush tax rates is a tax cut for the “rich”, extending the rates only for those under that 250K threshold is a tax cut for the middle class. But that goes counter to the temporary tax increase extension here in Nevada you argued are not an increase because they were already being paid. Since the bush tax cuts are currently in place how is extending them a tax cut now? Since they are currently not being paid , if they are extended they cannot be a cut. That is by your own reasoning. If some kind of extension is not reached, the tax increase will be signed and delivered by all parties, the whole Congress and the president won’t have anything to veto. So your op piece is headed completely wrong, it should read “Naysaying CONGRESS to middle class: Drop dead”
Social Media Election? The taller; or whiter; or heaver you are, the better chance you’ll be elected? (Not alone mentioning believing the policies would have to be better?) This philosophy parallels the belief that when you read a politicians name on a bumper sticker; the reader will automatically decide to vote for that name. Let me remind the ‘reader’ than Gore got more votes than Bush. And that’s counting the tens of thousands of Democratic voters that Jeb Bush illegally (court finding) had purged from the voters’ list.
“Forget the Rasmussen Poll out today that shows U.S. Sen. Dean Heller nine points ahead of Rep. Shelley Berkley”. I missed it……..exactly why are we to forget the poll numbers? Why are the poll numbers not important?
I would never dream of regulating comment threads, and so readers are free to post whatever they wish. I will only say that I appreciate the on-topic replies more than the off-topic ones, and other readers probably do as well. But again, there are no rules I will enforce save for no commercial spam.
Able: There are good reasons to disregard the Rasmussen poll, including its past track record, but that was merely a rhetorical line to introduce the topic I chose for this blog. Obviously, I did not intend to ignore that poll, inasmuch as I put a link to it in the blog. Read and decide for yourself what weight to give it.
I’m not sure any of us really know how accurately social media translates directly into actual votes – but, we do know how important it is to get the facts out there and how powerful truth is over rumor, innuendo, hear-say, gossip, out-and-out-lies (aka disinformation) and misinformation! Truth, when it is simply repeated often enough does set the record straight and persuade people to vote smart!
As for Rasmussen – it’s a Republican cog in the GOP machine – nothing more!
Thanks for this piece Steve – obviously we have a lot of work to do between now and November!
Let me get this right. You want an accurate poll on how many people will vote for which candidate? Why? Are there still people out there that vote for the one they think will win? This is their voting criteria? To be able to say they voted for the winner? Whatever happened to voting for our own best economic wellbeing?
Jerry! Nice one! Right on up the “economic well being” criteria. I much prefer principle over party. Good one from the Shadow, right Lamont?
Unfortunately there are a lot of people who want to vote for the winner, just so they can say they voted for the winner. However, some of those very people are rather embarrassed about voting for the current resident of the White House. ;p
How can we be embarrassed? President Obama saved us from a depression, pulled us from a recession; overhauled healthcare (CBO says it will save us money, where repealing it will cost us money); and saved the American auto industry. Sorry Steve, McCain was a loser and so’s the guy that paid no taxes, but whats you to.
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