During the process of collecting Twitter metrics on the candidates, I started adding in comparisons of several voter-oriented online groups. It’s intriguing to see which folks put a lot of effort into tweeting, despite having relatively small numbers of followers. That’s why the traction metric is useful. Going for volume without enough traction risks wheel spinning.

Selected Public Interest Organizations, March 2013

This list of prospective major-party candidates for the 2016 Presidential race includes Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for comparative purposes. Some have already made public announcements of “exploratory” activity. Many have traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire, and committed lots of time to fundraising. Others are the subject of active speculation by journalists or energetic draft movements.

If you think your name should be added, tweet to @aimspoll.

Name	Handle	Followers	Tweets	Volume	Traction	Party
Barack Obama	@BarackObama	54800000	13100	717880	4183	Dem
Hillary Clinton	@HillaryClinton	2800000	123	344	22764	Dem
Donald Trump	@realDonaldTrump	2790000	22900	63891	122	Rep
Mitt Romney	@MittRomney	1620000	1443	2338	1123	Rep
Sarah Palin	@SarahPalinUSA	1130000	2491	2815	454	Rep
Joe Biden	@JoeBiden	743000	1082	804	687	Dem
Marco Rubio	@marcorubio	681000	1866	1271	365	Rep
Paul Ryan	@PRyan	639000	568	363	1125	Rep
Rand Paul	@SenRandPaul	541000	3309	1790	163	Rep
Chris Christie	@GovChristie	504000	7006	3531	72	Rep
Allen West	@AllenWest	364000	2500	910	146	Rep
Mike Huckabee	@GovMikeHuckabee	352000	4204	1480	84	Rep
Carly Fiorina	@CarlyFiorina	344000	2397	825	144	Rep
Ted Cruz	@tedcruz	338000	8511	2877	40	Rep
Ben Carson	@RealBenCarson	288000	808	233	356	Rep
Bernie Sanders	@SenSanders	267000	11400	3044	23	Dem
Rick Santorum	@RickSantorum	227000	4385	995	52	Rep
Jeb Bush	@JebBush	161000	1144	184	141	Rep
John Bolton	@AmbJohnBolton	159000	1313	209	121	Rep
Elizabeth Warren	@elizabethforma	124000	1295	161	96	Dem
Scott Walker	@ScottWalker	95200	5753	548	17	Rep
Lindsey Graham	@GrahamBlog	68100	3743	255	18	Rep
John Kasich	@JohnKasich	66900	4240	284	16	Rep
Martin O'Malley	@GovernorOMalley	58400	10000	584	6	Dem
Rick Perry	@TeamRickPerry	34500	8658	299	4	Rep
Bobby Jindal	@BobbyJindal	21000	1940	41	11	Rep
Peter King	@RepPeteKing	19300	1969	38	10	Rep
George Pataki	@GovernorPataki	18700	281	5	67	Rep
Mike Pence	@mike_pence	5995	1304	8	5	Rep
Jim Webb	@JimWebbUSA	5007	226	1	22	Dem

Twitter Primary, mid-February 2015

Being willing and able to dominate the number of tweets heard in the world is certainly a distinctive status. It’s intriguing that Donald Trump’s success in that metric is so formidable. But winning on Twitter volume alone isn’t the way to win the presidency. And it’s certainly not a reason to deserve to win.

Horse-race analysis is highly esteemed in American political journalism, but it can also be a weapon of mass distraction. So it’s fair to ask how data like this, superficial as it may seem, advances AimsPoll’s overall mission… facilitating voter-friendly discussions of substantive priorities, specific plans, and guiding values.  The answering is that it opens an investigation into which candidates are most serious about using Twitter to engage in public discussions of priorities, plans, and values.

Some key performance metrics of the Twitter Primary aren’t shown here… yet. These would include candidate’s own original tweets that are germane to the election… links to position papers, videos of speeches, responses to voter inquiries, and even direct calls to action. Once those sorts of messages can be measured, the next thing to track is how widely they are retweeted. That would give real insight into the influence of a candidate’s substantive political expressions.

Twitter isn’t the only venue available for that sort of messaging and engagement, but it’s an undeniably fertile one for it. That’s why AimsPoll is so interested in covering the Twitter Primary, and helping candidates get better traction in it.

Right now, unfortunately, establishing leadership in substantive engagement is practically a moot point. At this stage of the game, the playing out of the Money Primary — and what Lawrence Lessig calls Tweedism — counts for much much more.

In the next day or so I’ll be publishing a table that compares the activity of major-party candidates on Twitter. What leaps out in a big way is Hillary Clinton’s very sparing use of the service. That behavior, combined with a huge number of followers, gives remarkable traction to her participation. It’s become a story in itself.

Caitlin Huey-Burns explored this in an article, Hillary Clinton’s Twitter Campaign, at Real Clear Politics. The observation was picked up by US News and World Report’s Robert Schlesinger in an article titled No Coronation, which was largely about efforts within the GOP to goad Clinton into higher public interaction.

When traction is calculated as the number of followers divided by the number of tweets, Clinton dominates the field. More importantly, she gets a remarkable number of retweets — often in the thousands — for each of her originals. At the other end of the spectrum some candidates are effectively just spinning their wheels, putting out massive numbers of tweets per follower, with only handfuls of retweets to show for it.