THE ECHO: A FRIDAY TIPSHEET OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY ON TWITTER Thanks to the support of GSPM alumnus William H. Madway Class of 2013.

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1 THE ECHO: A FRIDAY TIPSHEET OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY ON TWITTER Thanks to the support of GSPM alumnus William H. Madway Class of 213. INSTITUTIONS POTUS 8.1m 3% Average 6.5m Republicans 3.1m 4% Average 2.4m Democrats 3.1m 26% Average 1.6m U.S. Senate 45.8k 17% Average 59.1k U.S. House 28.k 16% Average 14.1k institutions: Action on immigration shifted to the U.S. House of Representatives this week, as President Trump visited Capitol Hill to meet with members. As of this writing, nothing has happened and support for both the moderate compromise and a conservative alternative does not appear to be enough to move beyond the president s executive order issued last week. As you can see on the next page, the Senate still gets more Twitter chatter but the machinations in the House this week were significant, resonating on the platform.

2 GW GSPM THE ECHO Volume 2, Issue 24 June 28, 218 Page 2 of 5 While President Trump continues to dominate the conversation on Twitter, Democrats were significantly more engaged this week gaining rare parity with Republicans. Since late August last year, as you can see below, the volume of posts including the Republican party outweighs Democrats on Twitter in the United States. It will be interesting to see as we move toward Election Day if this is a reflection of, or a leading or trailing indicator of the generic congressional vote. At this point it appears to be unrelated. As of June 27, the Democrats were up about 6% on Republicans while tweet volume was very close. One reason was the engagement of President Trump, who tweeted attacks at party leaders. 6,, United States Leading Political Parties Weekly Twitter Volume 5,, 4,, 3,, 2,, 1,, 8/31-9/6 9/7-13 9/14-2 9/ /28-1/4 1/5-11 1/ / /26-11/1 11/2-11/8 11/ / / /3-12/6 12/ / / /28-1/3 1/4-1 1/ / / /1-7 2/8-14 2/ / /1-7 3/8-14 3/ / /29-4/4 4/5-11 4/ / /26-5/2 5/3-9 5/1-16 5/ /24-3 5/31-6/6 6/7-13 6/14-2 6/21-27 Republicans Democrats

3 GW GSPM THE ECHO Volume 2, Issue 24 June 28, 218 Page 3 of 5 senate incumbent competitive races Nelson (FL) 26.8k 52% Heller (NV) 24.k 31% Brown (OH) 2.8k 35% Heitkamp (ND) 1.5k 23% Donnelly (IN) 1.1k 7% 218 Senate Competitive Races Weekly Twitter Volume 1, 8, 6, 4, 2, -2, 8/31-9/6 9/7-13 9/14-2 9/ /28-1/4 1/5-11 1/ / /26-11/1 11/2-11/8 11/ / / /3-12/6 12/ / / /28-1/3 1/4-1 1/ / / /1-7 2/8-14 2/ / /1-7 3/8-14 3/ / /29-4/4 4/5-11 4/ / /26-5/2 5/3-9 5/1-16 5/ /24-3 5/31-6/6 6/7-13 6/14-2 6/21-27 Sen. Bill Nelson (FL-D) Sen. Dean Heller (NV-R) Sen. Sherrod Brown (OH-D) Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (ND-D) Sen. Tina Smith (MN-D) Sen. Joe Donnelly (IN-D) Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO-D) Sen. Joe Manchin (WV-D) Sen. Angus King (ME-I) Senate races: Perhaps a more interesting way to view the key races we ve been tracking is with what I ve coined TweetWaves. There are simply too many races to look at them in terms of volume as you see from previous reports, low-volume incumbents get lost in the visualization. Here, you can more plainly track your eye across the graph to see Sen. Bill Nelson drawing interest more since his opponent, Governor Rick Scott, entered the race. It s also easier to note how Sen. Dean Heller s electoral life improved once he secured the president s support as the volume of the waves have become less pervasive, if not helpful to his approval rating. Sen. Joe Manchin is another great example where he is in and out of the news but his baseline of interest on Twitter is relatively low. Moving into the general election, Senators Nelson, Heller, and Brown are the races to keep an eye on, all of whom attract over 1, weekly related tweets.

4 GW GSPM THE ECHO Volume 2, Issue 24 June 28, 218 Page 4 of 5 house incumbent competitive races Coffman CO k 19% Rohrabacher CA k 169% Paulsen MN-3 4.7k 42% Comstock VA-1 3.5k 17% Lewis TX-23 3.k 9% 3, 218 House Competitive Races Weekly Twitter Voume 25, 2, 15, 1, 5, 3/1-7 3/8-14 3/ / /29-4/4 4/5-11 4/ / /26-5/2 5/3-5/9 5/1-5/16 5/17-5/23 5/24-3 5/31-6/6 6/7-13 6/14-2 6/ , Rep. Mike Coffman (CO-6-R) Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48-R) Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-3-R) Rep. Barbara Comstock (VA-1-R) Rep. Jason Lewis (MN-2-R) Rep. John Culberson (TX-7-R) Rep. Don Bacon (NE-2-R) Rep. John Faso (NY-19-R) Rep. Carlos Curbelo (FL-26-R) Rep. Peter Roskam (IL-8-R) Rep. Jeff Denham (CA-1-R) Rep. Claudia Tenney (NY-22-R) Rep. Rod Blum (IA-1-R) Rep. Steve Knight (CA-25-R) Rep. Will Hurd (TX-23-R) Rep. Mike Bost (IL-12-R) House races: Rep. Mike Coffman s departure from President Trump on the border separation policy spiked his tweet volume this week up over 1 percent. Again, the data here are easier to see in TweetWaves than in volume as Coffman s outlier of a week is clearer when showed in this type of visualization. Perennial resident on our leaderboard Rep. Dana Rohrabacher s continues to get pounded by his platform active opponent Harley Rouda, rebounding tweet volume 169 percent. In contrast, Rep. Barbara Comstock has receded into the background as her opponent digs in for the fall campaign, largely off Twitter. Moving into the general election, Rohrabacher remains the one to keep an eye on with an average of over 1, related tweets weekly while Comstock, Paulsen, Lewis, and Coffman comprise the next group with about 3, related tweets.

5 GW GSPM THE ECHO Volume 2, Issue 24 June 28, 218 Page 5 of 5 THE ECHO about: Released weekly on Friday mornings online, The ECHO is a social media research publication of George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management s (GSPM) Public Echoes of Political Rhetoric in America (PEORIA) Project. THE ECHO is funded in part by GSPM alumnus William H. Madway and through a reduced-cost license to Crimson Hexagon. Author s note: The ECHO has wrapped up publication this week and I would like to thank everyone for their financial support and readership since late August 217. I learned a lot about where Twitter lives in American politics and elections by producing this tip-sheet and companion analysis each week, and I hope you did, too. methodology: The ECHO features U.S. data collated by sets of keywords on the Crimson Hexagon platform. The first value represents the number of related tweets including the name or topic and the second demonstrates its increase or decrease over the week. Our analysis is informed by further research using Crimson Hexagon s additional features, which allows us to quickly view trending topics and search terms. Top Institutions include five components. We track both parties, chambers of Congress, and the presidency with several related terms beyond their official accounts on Twitter. For example, the presidency as well as Donald Trump, President Trump and DonaldTrump as search terms. Rolling averages are published since late summer 217 after the launch of The ECHO. Key Races are determined on a rolling basis based on our editorial team s evaluations of campaigns rated as Toss Up by the Cook Political Report, Sabato s Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. We feature the top five races in the Senate and the House as a function of seven-day related-tweet volume on Twitter. They are listed in order of the total number of times each were mentioned on Twitter over the past seven days (Thursday to Wednesday). Contact: Sign up to receive more insights like The ECHO in your Inbox here. For questions about The ECHO, please contact its author Dr. Michael D. Cohen at GSPM by at michaeldcohen@gwu.edu. For more information about the GSPM Global Center for Political Management and The PEORIA Project, please contact Dr. Michael Cornfield by at corn@gwu.edu. For questions about GSPM, please contact Dr. Lara Brown by at larambrown@gwu.edu. All can be reached by phone at