OK, so I took an early look at this race back in late April. I thought this would be a good opportunity to see how the candidates are growing their Twitter accounts and see what good or bad social media trends I am noticing from the accounts. Keep in mind it is still very early and I have yet to break down the engagement numbers as of today. This is really more a reference for those interested in this very interesting Congressional race in Maryland.

Click the “Official Campaign Twitter Account” links to view the social media page

Candidates	Twitter Followers	Changes since April 27	Official Campaign Twitter Account
Anthony Brown	3498	+61	@BrownforMD
Warren Christopher	501	+32	@WC4Congress
Glen Ivey	462	+161	@Glenn_Ivey
Ingrid Turner	326	+86	@IngridMTurner
Joseline Pena-Melnyk	321	+184	@PenaMelnykforMD
Dereck Davis	29	+29	@Davis4MD

Notes – Anthony Brown has a significant follower advantage, but keep in mind many of those followers came to him during his bid for Governor in 2014. Joseline Pena-Melnyk and Glen Ivey lead everyone with the adding of new followers. They should both look at that as a positive over the past 45 days. Glad to see Dereck Davis with an actual Twitter account this time around.

Negatives –

Glen Ivey: I am never a big fan of underscores in a Twitter name. Try typing a tweet about someone with an underscore in their name on your iPhone and you will understand why. I would also like to see more activity from the account. There are periods of time where there is just no news coming from that social media account.

Ingrid Turner: Changed your Twitter handle since the last evaluation. It also took some time to update that change on your campaign website (I will say that I am glad it is corrected now). Hopefully that will be the last change to the Twitter ID.

Dereck Davis: Could not be happier to see you on Twitter. Now you just need to begin tweeting on a regular basis to attract followers. As of this post, no tweets since June 22nd.

Most of the candidates are active and providing useful information, so I recommend following them all for updates.

Here is a neat little bit of information that came out in the past week: MD-04: Ex-Lt. Gov. and 2014 gubernatorial nominee Anthony Brown brings us our first poll of the crowded Democratic contest for this safely blue seat. Brown’s survey from Fred Yang gives him a 42-20 lead over former Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey, with the other candidates each taking no more than 5 percent. It’s not a huge surprise that the well-known Brown would start out ahead, though Ivey isn’t exactly anonymous here. Ivey’s team quickly released a survey from Ron Lester that gave Brown a more-modest 33-27 edge.

Here is the Ballotpedia listing for this race:  http://ballotpedia.org/Maryland%27s_4th_Congressional_District_election,_2016

Good luck to all of the candidates.

Scott E