Imagine a world where social media sites decided elections. Imagine if all the California propositions and candidates facing voters on Tuesday had nothing to do with all those negative television attack ads–impossible to fact-check in the middle of a commercial break–and everything to do with real sources and constructive insights submitted over the Internet.
Granted, the political arena would probably be a little bit more slanted toward the Democratic Party, considering that a major constituent generally associated with that party, younger people, generally votes Democratic. But let’s pretend that’s not true and let’s pretend we live in a world where demographics on Twitter actually match up with demographics in the state of California. With this (probably) crazy premise in mind, here’s a forecast of how today’s elections will turn out, based on Twitter accounts for the most talked-about candidates and propositions.
Governor
Democratic candidate Jerry Brown is easily the most popular on Twitter among any candidate mentioned here. The twice-elected governor of California (1975-1983), with 1.1 million followers, is the only one to have broken the one million mark.
The CEO of eBay from 1998 to 2008 and Republican candidate Meg Whitman has only garnered a quarter of that number, in spite of the fact that she is supposed to be the Silicon Valley veteran and has thrown more personal money at her own campaign than any other candidate in the history of campaign financing.
In general, Brown appears to be more active on Twitter, having tweeted nearly a thousand times compared with Whitman’s 800 tweets. Brown follows nearly 900 accounts, but Whitman barely follows 300. I guess she missed that whole study about following people to get more people to follow you.
If this one were up to Twitter, Brown would have it in the bag.
Senator
Another high-profile office position up for grabs, another experienced Democrat goes up in the fight against a technology businesswoman.
Barbara Boxer, Democratic incumbent seeking re-election for her Senate position, almost has 24,000 followers, a pretty measly showing for such a well-known figure in California politics. And it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with site activity: she’s tweeted just over 400 times and is following nearly 500 other users.
On the other hand, Republican candidate and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina is at least representing her tech roots by being the most active on Twitter (among the four candidates here) with nearly 2000 total tweets. She’s garnered over 300,000 followers and she follows around 350 users herself.
For a Democrat, Boxer sure isn’t appealing to her young constituency supposedly rampant on the social Web. This running easily goes to Fiorina.
Prop 19 (Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010)
Yes on Prop 19, notably backed by Gmail creator and FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit and early Facebook entrepreneur Sean Parker, has more than 5000 followers, while No on Prop 19 barely has 200. Look at it this way: the former has a fifth as many followers as Barbara Boxer. Those stoners might have a chance to smoke marijuana legally after all; Twitter votes yes on 19.
Prop 23 (suspends Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006)
Yes on Prop 23, with major support from big oil company Valero, has around 450 followers, while No on Prop 23 has just over 1000. With these two propositions, it looks like the young ones are deciding it on the Web; Twitter votes no on 23.
