Jerry Brown, with more than 1.1 million Twitter followers, exults after winning California's governorship.

Those latter figures were closely aligned to a Facebook analysis of the 98 most hotly contested House races, where 74 percent of the candidates with the most Facebook fans won.

We’re not really sure what meaning to assign to the numbers, if any. It goes without saying that many other factors affect the outcome, including incumbency, money and personality — not to mention ideology.

And if there is any lesson to be learned from the data for future elections, Twitter and Facebook are just as important in marketing politicians as they are for household products and personalities. President Barack Obama understood this, riding an internet wave to victory two years ago.

But Facebook and Twitter popularity wasn’t always necessary to win Tuesday.

Take the case of Arkansas incumbent Mike Beebe, a Republican who was re-elected. He had 509 followers on Twitter compared to rival Jim Keet, with 955. The same was true on Facebook. Beebe had 4,982 fans compared to Keet’s 5,053.

In the Golden State, Attorney General Jerry Brown trounced Republican rival Meg Whitman. The Democrat had about 98,000 Facebook fans, less than half Whitman’s almost 208,000. But on Twitter, Brown had 1.1 million followers, compared to Whitman’s more than 242,000. Don’t forget Whitman spent at least $100 million more than Brown did.

Alaska had another contorted outcome, and it’s unrelated to Sarah Palin.

Incumbent Republican Sean Parnell, who won, had 565 Facebook fans, about half as many as Democratic challenger Ethan Berkowitz. On Twitter, Parnell had 288 followers compared to Berkowitz’s 56.

Finally, one other anomaly worth pointing out. Republican Rick Scott won Florida’s race having 1,800 Twitter followers fewer than opponent Alex Sink. Scott, however, had 55,477 Facebook fans compared to Sink’s almost 30,000.

Gov races

Threat Level editor Kevin Poulsen contributed to this report.

See Also:

• The Obama Campaign: A Great Campaign, Or The Greatest?
• Malicious RoboCalls Aim at Suppressing Election Day Turnout
• GOP Site ‘Barackbook’ Mocks Obama’s Facebook Support
• Feds Move to Break Voting-Machine Monopoly

Authors: David Kravets

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