Republican Candidates – Maryland US Senate Race – March Technology Outreach Scorecard

I am a little late in writing this evaluation…but finally here it is. Interested in the February numbers? CLICK HERE. As I continue to review the social media outreach numbers for this race, it may be starting to look more and more like a two person race….let’s see this months updated numbers…
The candidates: To see the full list of candidates click here
Richard Douglas: http://douglasmaryland.com/
Chrys Kefalas: https://www.chrysformaryland.com/
Kathy Szeliga: http://www.kathyformaryland.com/
Dave Wallace: http://www.davewallace.us/
Chris Chaffee: http://www.chrischaffeeforussenate.com/
Sean Conner: http://www.seanconnor.us/
John Graziani: ???
Greg Holmes: ???
Joe Hooe: http://www.joehooe.org/
Mark McNicholas: ???
Lynn Richardson: http://www.richardsonforussenate.org/
Anthony Seda: sedaforussenate.com
Richard Shawver: ???
Gary Thomas Yarrington: ???

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

Candidate	Facebook Followers	Twitter Followers	YouTube
Chrys Kefalas	5,148 (+297)	15,900 (+700)	Yes
Richard Douglas	2,015 (+9)	351 (+20)	Yes
Kathy Szeliga	5,910 (+640)	1,593 (+122)	No
Dave Wallace	2,735 (+70)	1,622 (+22)	No

Notes:

• There are still many candidates that I have been unable to find websites for to date…if you have updates to the scorecard for any of the candidates, please let me know.
• Facebook – For the third straight month Szeliga added the most the Facebook followers. Kefalas continues to add a respectable number of followers each month.
• Twitter – For the third straight month Kefalas added the most new Twitter followers and continues to hold a significant advantage of total followers on this platform. Szeliga is easily the number two candidate on this platform and based on the number of new followers added could catch Wallace in total number of followers before the next evaluation.
• Other – No recent YouTube videos for any candidates on their campaign accounts….I am little disappointed.

A significant factor in evaluating online outreach is looking at follower engagement. In March, I am focusing my reviews on recent Twitter engagement. Want to know how i get the numbers? READ THIS. Here are the recent Twitter numbers for the candidates:

Notes:

• Kefalas was the clear leader with an engagement score of over 100. This is not a big surprise given his follower total advantage…maybe a little surprised that his engagement score was not higher.
• Szeliga easily wins the “Silver Medal” in engagement with a decent score of 63.
• Douglas and Wallace had next to no engagement over their most recent tweets.

Online Outreach Leader in this race: Tie between Kefalas and Szeliga. These two are the clear online outreach leaders in this race. Szeliga is winning on Facebook, Kefalas is winning on Twitter and Twitter engagement is close (Kefalas won but by less than 2x Szeliga but with a follower advantage of 10x…should have won bigger)…so that is why I called it a tie this month. There is little question which candidates are putting time, money and effort into their online outreach…time will tell if that will turn into votes.

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 can show trends in a campaign cycle and makes a great resource for following all of the candidates.

Scott E