Three candidates have fallen out of the race since the last evaluation and we are down to the final five. It appears that none of the remaining candidates are looking to drop out anytime soon…but this election cycle is so different that you just never know what might happen. Interested in the February numbers? CLICK HERE

Now on to the March evaluation…

The candidates: To see the full list of candidates via NY Times: click here

Democrat:

Hillary Clinton: https://www.hillaryclinton.com

Bernie Sanders: https://berniesanders.com/

Republican:

Donald Trump: https://www.donaldjtrump.com

Ted Cruz: https://www.tedcruz.org

John Kasich: https://johnkasich.com/

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

Democrat Candidates	Facebook Followers	Twitter Followers
Hillary Clinton	3.015 Million (+511 K)	5.79 Million (+350 K)
Bernie Sanders	3.560 Million (+692 K)	1.79 Million (+330 K)
Republican Candidates
Donald Trump	6.708 Million (+915 K)	7.24 Million (+980 K)
Ted Cruz	2.090 Million (+174 K)	989,000 (+158 K)
John Kasich	276,791 (+89 K)	259,000 (+77 K)

Notes:

• Facebook
  • Democrat – Once again Sanders is on top adding nearly 700,000 new followers since the last evaluation (a pretty big advantage over Clinton over the past month).
  • Republican – Trump ads over 900,000 new followers in just over a month (no one else is even close).
• Twitter
  • Democrat – Clinton is back on top of this platform adding over 350,000 new followers (just edging out Sanders).
  • Republican – Trump added nearly 1 million new followers since the last evaluation. The overall outreach is just silly big for Trump on this platform.
• Most of the candidates are using many other online resources for outreach. Be sure to check their campaign pages to see the full list.

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:

Candidate	Tweets Evaluated	Engagement	Engagement Score
Hillary Clinton	7 most recent	10,500 retweets and 25,500 favorites	46,500
Bernie Sanders	7 most recent	10,000 retweets and 24,400 favorites	44,400
Donald Trump	7 most recent	47,600 retweets and 137,000 favorites	232,200
Ted Cruz	7 most recent	7,800 retweets and 12,700 favorites	28,300
John Kasich	7 most recent	1,100 retweets and 3,300 favorites	5,500

Notes

• Trump…just wow with that engagement score. If you added all other candidates (Democrat and Republican) they still don’t come close to the engagement Trump is getting on Twitter.
• On the Democrat side, Clinton holds a slight edge…but given the total follower advantage for Clinton, I would have expected a much larger margin of victory. This is actually a good sign for the Sanders team.

Online Outreach Leaders in this race: 

Democrat: I am calling this a draw. Sanders wins Facebook, Clinton wins on Twitter . Engagement is basically a draw.

Republican: Trump is dominating the online outreach for the GOP side of the race. His numbers are impressive and just keep growing at impressive rate every month. No one else is even close with online outreach.

Overall technology outreach ranking by candidates:

Democrat:

1. Clinton and Sanders (Draw)

Republican:

1. Trump
2. Cruz
3. Kasich

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