Engaged social followers are translating into voters, as Cision accurately predicted that both Trump and Bernie Sanders would win the New Hampshire primary and lose the Iowa caucus.
Senator Ted Cruz’s strength has diminished since winning the Iowa Caucus on February 1. His one and only victory can be seen as marginal at best, only retaining 28 percent of the vote to Donald Trump’s 24 percent. Marco Rubio finished third at 23 percent.
Tonight is the Nevada Caucus for the Republican Party, and Trump has the momentum as he is coming off of two clear victories.
Fivethirtyeight.com gives Trump a 64 percent chance to win, Rubio holds a 25 percent chance and Cruz has only a 10 percent chance.
Our data agrees. Based on a share of voice analysis, of 38,000 social mentions collected between February 15 and February 22, weighted by topics that matter to Nevada voters, we project that Trump is likely to win the Nevada Caucus. He holds 28 percent share of voice, Rubio is hot on Trump’s heels, likely to place second holding 25 percent share of voice. Cruz is in the picture with 20 percent.
On Monday, Cruz fired his communications director Ricky Tyler, for publishing a misleading video which insinuated that Rubio said that the Bible had no answers. This fits the narrative being built by Trump that the Cruz campaign is conducting a dirty tricks campaign.
Should Cruz lose Nevada he’ll need to either make changes to his team or drastic shifts in his messaging to find new voters and engage on an equal plane with Trump and Rubio.
If this shift happens, it will likely be a credit to Cruz’s top staffers on Twitter. They have more followers than Rubio’s staffers but are far behind Trump’s staffers. If Cruz wants to come close, these are the people that will help him thump Trump:
The top staffers and number of followers were pulled on February, 22 2016.
1. Amanda Carpenter, @amandacarpenter
Former Communications Director, 68k followers
2. Saul Anuzis, @sanuzis
Chairman (Michigan), 21.1k followers
3. John Drogin, @JohnDrogin
Former Senate Campaign Manager & State Director, 12.4k followers
4. Spence Rogers, @SpenceRogers
Deputy Director (Iowa), 9,321 followers
5. Ron Nehring, @RonNehring
Chairman (California), 9,142 followers
6. Steve Lonegan, @Lonegan
Chairman (New Jersey), 8,538 followers
7. Jeff Roe, @jeffroe
Campaign Manager, 7,453 followers
8. Alice Stewart, @alicetweet
Senior Communications Advisor, 6,852 followers
9. Jonathon McClellan, @jonmcclellan
Regional Political Director, 5,439 followers
10. Catherine Frazier, @catblackfrazier
National Press Secretary, 5,002 followers
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