The latest polls for MD08 say this is probably a three person race (Raskin, Matthews and Trone). Now with this many candidates I believe this primary could be quite interesting and with just over a month to go it is one to keep a close eye on. If interested in the February numbers, CLICK HERE.

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

Democrat:

Kumar Barve: http://www.kumarbarve.com/

Will Jawando: http://willjawando.com/

Kathleen Matthews: http://kathleenmatthewsforcongress.com/

Jamie Raskin: https://jamieraskin.com/

David Trone: http://davidtrone.com/

Ana Sol-Gutierrez:  http://www.anasolgutierrez.com

Joel Rubin: http://www.joelrubinforcongress.com/

Dave Anderson: http://andersonforcongress.com/

Dan Bolling: http://www.dantocongress.com/

Republican:

Liz Matory: http://lizforcongress.nationbuilder.com/

Aryeh Shudofsky: http://www.aryehforcongress.com

Dan Cox: http://www.coxforcongress.org/

Jeffrey Jones: http://www.jjones4congress8.org/

Shelly Skolnick: http://www.shellyskolnickforcongress.com/

The Scorecard: (Click the follower numbers below to view the social media page)

Candidates	Facebook Followers	Twitter Followers
Democrat
Kumar Barve	4,826 (+61)	3,005 (+60)
William Jawando	2,234 (+167)	1,471 (+133)
Kathleen Matthews	2,373 (+217)	678 (+128)
Jamie Raskin	3,137 (+465)	3,172 (+192)
David Trone	5,051 (+3,967)	338 (+195)
Republican
Liz Matory	666 (+20)	196 (+20)
Aryeh Shudofsky	160 (+7)	35 (+3)

Notes:

• I removed Joel Rubin and Ana Sol-Gutierrez based on their overall performance online. They are both just getting outpaced by the other candidates with online outreach.
  • Sol-Gutierrez added 26 Facebook followers and 53 Twitter followers.
  • Rubin added 38 Facebook followers and 28 Twitter followers.
• Facebook – Trone had the big month adding nearly 4,000 new followers. Now I don’t have much tracking data so I can not say if this is an abnormality or not. Next best was Raskin with over 450 new followers.
• Twitter – Trone and Raskin were basically neck and neck with both adding nearly 200 new followers over the past month.
• THE GOP candidates are significantly trailing the DEMS online…whoever comes out on top in the Primary will really need to step it up in the General Election.

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:

Candidates	Tweets Evaluated	Engagement Score
Democrat
Kumar Barve	7 most recent	20
William Jawando	7 most recent	48
Kathleen Matthews	7 most recent	62
Jamie Raskin	6 most recent	83
David Trone	7 most recent	41

Notes:

• I did not list any of the GOP candidates due to very limited Twitter engagement.
• Raskin lead all candidates with retweets and favorites of his “original” recent posts…although he only had 6 posts over the past week. Matthews was the clear #2 with recent Twitter engagement.

Online Outreach Leader in this race: Jamie Raskin. This was a difficult one because of the lack of long term tracking data for Trone but Raskin being even in adding Twitter followers and winning on Twitter engagement gives him a slight edge. I would rate Matthews and Trone a tie for second and Jawando in 4th on this evaluation.

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