THE YEAR IN ECHOES (AND OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN CONVERSATION)

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MICHAEL CORNFIELD AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR LARA BROWN

RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 21, 2016

Using Zignal Labs’ platform, GSPM tracks the mainstream and social media echoes of

the presidential candidates and their campaign messages.

PART ONE

Presidential Chatter

THE “SEMI-VISIBLE” PRIMARY WINNERS?MARCH 15, 2015 – JANUARY 17, 2016Candidates(Alphabetical Order, by Party)

Total Mentions

Net Sentiment

(%, most positive)

Mainstream Media

Mentions

Social Media

Mentions

Website Shares

Echo Conversio

n

Jeb Bush 5 14 3 5 9 12

Ben Carson 6 1 7 6 11 11

Chris Christie 10 12 8 10 12 14

Ted Cruz 4 7 5 4 1 1

Carly Fiorina 9 5 10 9 10 10

Mike Huckabee 12 13 12 12 8 6

John Kasich 11 3 11 11 7 7

Rand Paul 8 11 9 8 4 2

Marco Rubio 7 8 6 7 5 4

Rick Santorum 13 4 14 13 14 3

Donald Trump 1 6 1 1 6 13

Hillary Clinton 2 10 2 2 3 8

Bernie Sanders 3 2 4 3 2 5

Martin O’Malley 14 9 13 14 13 9

THE “SEMI-VISIBLE” PRIMARY WINNERS? MARCH 15, 2015 – JANUARY 17, 2016Republican Candidates(Descending Order)

Winners (total points, lowest points = best)

Democratic Candidates

(Descending Order)

Winners (total

points, lowest

points = best)

Ted Cruz 1 (22 pts.) Bernie Sanders 1 (19 pts.)

Donald Trump 2 (28 pts.) Hillary Clinton 2 (27 pts.)

Marco Rubio 3 (37 pts.) Martin O’Malley 3 (72 pts.)

Rand Paul4 – tie (42 pts.)

Ben Carson4 – tie (42 pts.)

Jeb Bush 5 (48 pts.)

John Kasich 6 (50 pts.)

Carly Fiorina 7 (53 pts.)

Rick Santorum 8 (61 pts.)

Mike Huckabee 9 (63 pts.)

Chris Christie 10 (66 pts.)

Candidates(Descending Order)

Total MentionsMarch 15, 2015 – January 17, 2016

All Current Candidates

(share of voice, in %)

Republicans Only (share of voice,

in %)

Donald Trump 57,427,624 37.7 54.2Hillary Clinton 24,550,084 16.1 --Bernie Sanders 20,993,263 13.7 --Ted Cruz 12,645,053 8.3 11.9Jeb Bush 7,770,771 5.1 7.3Ben Carson 6,571,776 4.3 6.2Marco Rubio 5,473,165 3.6 5.2Rand Paul 4,499,443 3.0 4.3Carly Fiorina 3,234,045 2.1 3.1Chris Christie 2,940,475 1.9 2.8John Kasich 2,228,874 1.5 2.1Mike Huckabee 2,070,280 1.4 2.0Rick Santorum 1,054,703 0.7 1.0Martin O’Malley 820,495 0.5 1.8

CONVERSATION LEADERS

TRUMP DOMINATED

05

10152025303540

All Candidates Share of Voice (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

CLINTON & TRUMP

53%

45%

2%

Democratic Share of Voice (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

Clinton Sanders O'Malley

8%

6%

3%

12%

3%

2%2%

4%

5%1%

54%

Republican Share of Voice (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

Bush Carson Christie Cruz Fiorina Huckabee

Kasich Paul Rubio Santorum Trump

DEMOCRATIC TIME SERIES

4/12: Clinton announces

10/11: Sanders “MTP”

12/13: Sanders in IA “Weekend of Action”

1/10: Sanders new WSJ/NBC poll showing tight IA race

DEMOCRATIC NET SENTIMENT

Note: Net sentiment is measured as the percentage of positive mentions minus the percentage of negative mentions (similar to “net approval” or “net favorability”). Still, NLP does not capture sentiment all that indiscriminately. As such, sarcasm (“that’s sick”), disappointment (“that sucks”), or even descriptive facts (“drops out”) may be included in the mentions count. Net sentiment should, therefore, be seen as a directional and relational indicator rather than an absolute measure.

-30.0 -20.0 -10.0 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0

Clinton

Sanders

O'Malley

Net Sentiment of Democratic Candidate Mentions (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

REPUBLICAN TIME SERIES

Note: Legend omits Mike Huckabee (˜2M mentions) & Rick Santorum (˜1M mentions).

12/6: Trump Muslim ban

8/23: Trump on “FTN”

3/23: Cruz announces

REPUBLICAN NET SENTIMENT

-25.0 -20.0 -15.0 -10.0 -5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0

Bush

Carson

Christie

Cruz

Fiorina

Huckabee

Kasich

Paul

Rubio

Santorum

Trump

Net Sentiment of Republican Candidate Mentions (%)March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

Note: Net sentiment is measured as the percentage of positive mentions minus the percentage of negative mentions (similar to “net approval” or “net favorability”). Still, NLP does not capture sentiment all that indiscriminately. As such, sarcasm (“that’s sick”), disappointment (“that sucks”), or even descriptive facts (“drops out”) may be included in the mentions count. Net sentiment should, therefore, be seen as a directional and relational indicator rather than an absolute measure.

DEMOCRATS: WHO IS TALKING ABOUT WHOM?

Candidates Mainstream Media

March 15, 2015–

January 17, 2016

Social Media

March 15, 2015–

January 17, 2016

Hillary Clinton 2,904,724 22,142,360

Bernie Sanders 946,176 20,047,087

Martin O’Malley 299,421 521,074

0

5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

Clinton Sanders O'Malley

Tota

l Men

tions

Total Media Mentions March 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

Mainstream Media Social Media

REPUBLICANS: WHO IS TALKING ABOUT WHOM?

Candidates Mainstream Media

March 15, 2015-

January 17, 2016

Social Media

March 15, 2015-

January 17, 2016

Jeb Bush 1,278,863 6,491,908Ben Carson 822,954 5,748,822Chris Christie 547,942 2,392,533Ted Cruz 942,931 11,702,122Carly Fiorina 466,409 2,767,636Mike Huckabee 326,490 1,743,790John Kasich 354,065 1,874,809Rand Paul 538,738 3,992,459Marco Rubio 889,780 4,583,385Rick Santorum 177,156 877,547Donald Trump 2,844,943 54,582,681

Trump: Off the chart again (see table)

0.00

2,000,000.00

4,000,000.00

6,000,000.00

8,000,000.00

10,000,000.00

12,000,000.00

14,000,000.00

Tota

l Men

tions

Total Media MentionsMarch 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

Mainstream Media Social Media

PART TWO

Social media activity by the candidates and their

campaigns.

TRUMP ON TOP?ECHO CONVERSION RATES

Candidates (Descending Order)

Echo Conversion (total number of website shares/total number of social media mentions, in % for March 15, 2015 – January 17, 2016)

Ted Cruz 5.0

Rand Paul 3.7

Rick Santorum 2.9

Marco Rubio 2.8

Bernie Sanders 2.2

Mike Huckabee 2.1

John Kasich 2.0

Hillary Clinton 1.9

Martin O’Malley 1.5

Carly Fiorina 1.1

Ben Carson 0.5

Jeb Bush 0.5

Donald Trump 0.1

Chris Christie nd

Again, Trump is “off the chart.” His social media mentions were over 54M, but his website shares were 61,479 – he comes in second to last on this measure.

0

5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

Social Media Mentions & Website SharesMarch 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

Social Media Mentions Website Shares

CANDIDATES SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITY

0100,000200,000300,000400,000500,000600,000700,000

Social Media Activity of the Candidate/CampaignMarch 15, 2015 - J anuary 17, 2016

Website Shares Top Campaign Tweet (RTs)

Note: Trump did not have one of his own Tweets in the “top Tweet by RT” category. All of the top Tweets involving Trump were negative comments about Trump, and each earned more 30,000 RTs.

QUESTIONS?Graduate School of Political Management

@GSPMGWUJohn BrandtMedia Relationsjohnbrandt@gwu.edu

Michael Cornfield Lara BrownAssociate Professor Associate Professorcorn@gwu.edu

larambrown@gwu.edu

Zignal Labs @ZignalLabs

Pete Eskew D.J. WaldowHead of East Coast Sales Director of Marketingpeskew@zignallabs.com djwaldow@zignallabs.com