The new news for this evaluation is that I was able to find a website and social media outreach for Dan Rupli (finally). If you are interested in the May evaluation, you can read it here:  wp.me/p4dBsm-j1 

Now on to this evaluation…

The candidates: To see the official list of candidates click here

Democrat

Dan Rupli – https://sites.google.com/site/rupli4senate/home

Republican

David Brinkley (State Senator District 4) – http://www.dbrinkley.com/

Michael Hough (State Delegate District 3B) – http://houghforsenate.com/

The Scorecard: (Click the “Yes” or follower numbers below to view the social media page)

Here are my takeaways from the scorecard above:

After a lot of searching I finally came across a website and Twitter account for Dan Rupli. Now the website is not great (a Google sites page) and the Twitter account is rarely used and only has three followers today. Time will tell if this gets better going forward.

Michael Hough continues to hold a significant advantage with Twitter followers. There were not many new Facebook followers added this reporting period for the campaign page.

I would say the big story of this evaluation is David Brinkley and his significant jump in Facebook followers. In less than a month his team has added over 700 new followers. This kind of activity in a Senate or Delegate race always makes me think something is just not right. Is it possible that everything is on the up and up, sure. The team could be pushing significant funds into Facebook ads (which I am a fan of), the team could be getting the site promoted by others to attract new followers or the team could be “buying” followers (I really hope this is not the case). I have no way to definitively know but you just have to wonder. Maybe someone from that team will comment and let us all know.

I will say that the significant jump seems to have begun two days after my last evaluation (see graphic). Probably means that someone is paying attention to the technology outreach evaluations.

Of course the reality of followers, likes, and subscribers does not mean a lot when it comes down to voting in the end, but it is a fun exercise to do and makes a great resource for following all of these candidates.

 Here is an interesting article from the Baltimore Sun about the race: Senate GOP leader faces challenge from right

Here are the results from the Red Maryland June poll:

Early voting continues until the 19th. Make sure to get out and vote!

Scott E