This Week’s 2016 Twitter Power Rankings
Welcome to Week 9 of the Slatest’s 2016 Twitter Power Rankings. Above, you’ll find our handy interactive of the entire week’s worth of candidate tweets: how many each White House hopeful sent and how often they were retweeted and favorited, along with how each fared in the 140-character fight with their political rivals on both sides of the aisle. (Click to zoom in on a particular candidate, and click again to see the content of each tweet.)
Below, meanwhile, you’ll find our tried-and-true method of ranking each candidate’s single most successful tweet of the past seven days. Together, the two offer a helpful snapshot of which topics dominated the political conversation online and also give us some insight into which contenders are winning the campaign Twitter wars and why.
The ground rules again:
- For the rankings below, we’re defining a candidate’s most successful tweet as the one that receives the most retweets.
- Tweets that include a direct request for a retweet are ineligible for the traditional rankings because that’s cheating. RT if you agree! (Retweet-begging tweets, though, will still appear in the interactive at the top.)
- Only tweets from the past seven days are eligible. Since we’ll publish the weekly rankings every Friday, that means any tweet sent in the seven days prior to when we hit the big red button at around 10 a.m. to cull all the data.
You’ll find this week’s takeaways at the bottom, but without any further ado:
1.) Bernie Sanders (Last week: 2)
Tell me, future boy, who's President of the United States in 2017? "Bernie Sanders." Bernie Sanders?! From Vermont? pic.twitter.com/saXRY3aguV
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 21, 2015
2.) Donald Trump (1)
It's really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2015
3.) Hillary Clinton (4)
11 hours in → #ImWithHer https://t.co/0t9V3oqZGQ pic.twitter.com/wxtU2atLte
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 23, 2015
4.) Jeb Bush (6)
How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) October 16, 2015
5.) John Kasich (7)
.@JohnKasich was on @FoxNews w/ @SeanHannity to talk abt the Kasich Action Plan #ResultsNow #Kasich4Us https://t.co/aBu3f89Qej
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) October 16, 2015
6.) Ben Carson (5)
Let your silence be heard. Be a voice for the voiceless. #ProLifeDayofSilence pic.twitter.com/ae5Ec7sFcf
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) October 20, 2015
7.) Ted Cruz (8)
Secretary Kerry is utterly unfit for his office. Demand his resignation: https://t.co/BKO4RmsjxG #StandWithIsrael pic.twitter.com/JerHNmAasj
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 21, 2015
8.) Rand Paul (11)
With @JoeBiden out of the race, democrats are left with a choice between socialism and corruption. Cc: @HillaryClinton @SenSanders
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 21, 2015
9.) Marco Rubio (9)
The Obama Administration needs to stop blaming Israel for Palestinian terror. Click here if you agree: http://t.co/pxDGOTBKXu
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 17, 2015
10.) Mike Huckabee (3)
Chris Stevens died, Hillary Clinton lied, and the Obama administration tried to cover it up. Time to tell the truth! #Benghazi
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) October 22, 2015
11.) Martin O'Malley (13)
We held tobacco companies responsible for lying about cancer. Let’s do the same for oil companies & climate change. http://t.co/mS4fMEEduy
— Martin O'Malley (@MartinOMalley) October 16, 2015
12.) George Pataki (14)
.@realDonaldTrump Al-Qaeda is responsible for the attacks of 9/11- not President Bush
— George E. Pataki (@GovernorPataki) October 16, 2015
13.) Carly Fiorina (16)
This is the 'Clinton Way.' She cannot be president. https://t.co/oxPOe7pztw
— Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) October 22, 2015
14.) Bobby Jindal (10)
Democrats are now left with a socialist or a candidate under FBI investigation. Let's embrace our conservative principles, and we will win.
— Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) October 21, 2015
15.) Rick Santorum (12)
Today I was the 1st GOP presidential candidate in nearly a decade to have a NY Times Editorial Board, & I survived! pic.twitter.com/1Teh13qqof
— Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum) October 19, 2015
16.) Lindsey Graham (15)
.@realDonaldTrump - saying I don't know Iraq & Afghanistan is like saying you dont know bankruptcy https://t.co/I9gVUAFceH
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 19, 2015
17.) Lawrence Lessig (19)
The 1st priority of a Lessig administration is to fix the corruption that cripples Congress. @Lessig on the issues: https://t.co/aXwQjEkKKb
— Lessig2016 (@Lessig2016) October 18, 2015
18.) Chris Christie (20)
I'll be on set with @seanhannity tonight. Tune in to @foxnews at 10p
— Chris Christie (@ChrisChristie) October 20, 2015
19.) Jim Gilmore (21)
Biden decision means Dems are left with Clinton, Sanders. Socialists whose policies would hurt those they claim they want to help.
— James S Gilmore (@gov_gilmore) October 21, 2015
Single Tweet Winner: Bernie and Doc Brown
Sanders struck social media gold after crossing paths with Christopher Lloyd backstage during a taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Of course, Back to the Future doesn’t have the most sterling track record when it comes to predicting winners and losers. Then again, maybe that’s not the point.
Overall RT Winner: Donald
Yep, again. Given the general fact-free nature of his campaign, it’s fitting that his most successful tweet of the week was climate science–denying nonsense.
Gone and Quickly Forgotten: Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee
The two long-shot candidates pulled the plugs on their respective Democratic campaigns this week—a fact that went entirely uncommented upon by Clinton and Sanders on Twitter. The two leading Democrats did, however, both find time to wish Joe Biden well after the veep announced he wouldn’t make a late entry into the nominating contest.