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We decided to take a look at the accounts retweeting the 2020 Democratic primary contenders, beginning with @TulsiGabbard. We examined retweets of Gabbard's tweets from 2/13 through 2/23, and found 21860 accounts that retweeted her in that timespan.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
We downloaded the profile information as well as the most recent 200 tweets from each account that recently retweeted Gabbard. This chart shows the primary languages the accounts use. 92% are in English; Spanish and Hindi are a small but notable portion. 
Here are the hashtags most frequently used by accounts that retweet @TulsiGabbard. There's some interesting variety here: #GreenNewDeal and #MAGA both turn up, along with #GiletsJaunes/#YellowVests and various Venezuela, India, and Syria-related hashtags.
What media sources do Twitter accounts that amplify @TulsiGabbard link? Russia Today is the clear front-runner, with ZeroHedge, Sputnik, @caitoz's Medium page, and a smorgasbord of Western MSM and Indian sites making up the rest.
Who else do accounts that retweet @TulsiGabbard retweet? This chart shows the 40 most frequent fliers. It's an interesting lineup, and we're tempted to tag @ggreenwald and let him know he turned up just because he enjoyed the last thread he was mentioned in so much.
That's all for now, but over the ensuing days we plan to perform the same analysis on the retweeters of the other Democratic candidates and compare.
We performed the same analysis on accounts retweeting @KamalaHarris (date range: 2/14 through 2/24). We found 77997 accounts that retweeted Harris during that timeframe. 98% are predominantly English-language accounts; about half the remainder are Spanish.
In terms of media sources, the accounts that retweet @KamalaHarris link a mixture of center and left-leaning Western (mostly US-based) mainstream news sites. Washington Post is the most popular.
May of the hashtags linked by the accounts that retweet @KamalaHarris share a theme of opposition to the policies and actions of the present administration (#FakeTrumpEmergency, for example). #GreenNewDeal, #BlackHistoryMonth, and #Venezuela also show up, among others.
This theme continues when one looks at the other accounts frequently retweeted by accounts that RT @KamalaHarris (including some conservative critics of the adminstration, e.g. @BillKristol). @AOC is popular among retweeters of both Harris and Gabbard.
Next up: @BernieSanders. Using the same method as for Harris and Gabbard, we found 164595 accounts that retweeted Sanders between 2/15 and 2/25. Spanish-language accounts are more common in this set than they were for retweeters of the two candidates already examined.
In terms of news, the lineup of sites linked by @BernieSanders retweeters is very similar to what we saw with Harris (RT is present, but a small slice). Non-news sites such as music streaming and follower tracking are also common, in contrast with retweeters of Harris / Gabbard.
Here are the hashtags most frequently used by the accounts retweeting @BernieSanders. They're a mixture of US political issue/candidate focused hashtags (#MedicalForAll, #Bernie2020), international political hashtags (#Brexit), and entertainment (#Oscars, the largest slice).
What accounts do accounts amplifying @BernieSanders retweet frequently? @AOC is again high on the list. They also retweet candidates other than Sanders (@KamalaHarris, @TulsiGabbard, @ewarren). @jeremycorbyn is notable in light of #Brexit's presence in the hashtag chart.
Onward to @amyklobuchar. This set of accounts looks very similar, especially in terms of media links, to the accounts retweeting Warren. Another commonality between the two is that neither have gotten much traction with Spanish-language users.
Next up: accounts retweeting @SenGillibrand. There isn't much new to comment on with this set; they profile very similarly to those retweeting Warren and Klobuchar.
The same themes continue with the accounts retweeting @CoryBooker - similar media sources, language breakdown, hashtags, etc to Warren, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar.
Last candidate for now: @JulianCastro. The accounts amplifying his tweets look similar to the last few we'e covered, although there are some differences due to the smaller number of accounts (lack of even a trivial presence of languages other than English/Spanish, for example).
This figure shows the degree of overlap (number of accounts that retweeted both) between each pair of candidates. @KamalaHarris's amplifiers show the greatest degree of overlap; @TulsiGabbard and @JulianCastro the least (although Castro receives far fewer RTs than the others).
Here are the average tweet rates for the accounts that retweeted each candidate. None are particularly spammy (we've encountered sizable groups of accounts with 100+ tweets per day). The Sanders amplifiers are a bit of an outlier in the direction of having very little activity.
We checked to see how many of the accounts retweeting each candidate followed one of the six banned IRA trolls for which we have follower lists (@TEN_GOP, @Pamela_Moore13, @USA_Gunslinger, @_America_1st, @tpartynews, and @rightnpr - all were right-wing). Here are the results.
Next up: accounts retweeting @BetoORourke. Most are in English and RT a similar set of accounts to those amplifying other candidates. Unusually, they use a lot of pop culture hashtags and link music sites and a follower app (as do those RTing @BernieSanders).
Accounts retweeting @PeteButtigieg look similar to those retweeting Booker, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, and Warren; almost all are English-language, link primarily mainstream news sources, and retweet a similar set of accounts including several of the other candidates and @AOC.
We're including @JoeBiden in this analysis for the sake of completeness, with the disclaimer that his Twitter account is far less active than those of the other candidates, and thus the data may well be noisier.
Updated network showing number of retweeters in common between each pair of candidates. Gabbard (little overlap other than Sanders) is the main outlier; there's otherwise a fair degree of overlap between the accounts amplifying each candidate with a prominent Twitter presence.
Let's round this out with seven more candidates. The retweeters of four of them (@JohnDelaney, @Hickenlooper, @JayInslee, and @WayneMessam) look fairly similar to what we've seen before, so there won't be much commentary on those ones. Here's @JohnDelaney.
Same thing for accounts that retweeted John @Hickenlooper. . .
And @JayInslee. . .
And @WayneMessam, before we move on to some interesting outliers. . .
The accounts retweeting @MikeGravel have an interesting set of media sources. Most are Western MSM, but RT, Reddit, Wikileaks, Breitbart, and ZeroHedge all manage to make their way in, alongside more overtly left-biased Western sources such as The Nation and The Intercept.
Onward to accounts that retweeted @marwilliamson. The unique element here relative to the accounts amplifying other candidates is the prevalence of the #ADOS hashtag, also reflected in the websites being linked.
Finally (for now), accounts retweeting @AndrewYang. Their most frequently linked site is Reddit, and in addition to Yang (and other candidates) they retweet a strange cast of characters including @ggreenwald, @JackPosobiec, @PrisonPlanet, and @DonaldJTrumpJr.
As additional candidates throw their hats into the ring, we'll continue to update this thread. Same figures for accounts that retweet @TimRyan.
Adding one more: languages, media sources, hashtags, and other accounts retweeted by accounts that retweet @ericswalwell.
We'll keep this thread focused on the Democratic candidates; we've started a separate thread here for third party/Independent/GOP.
Another Democrat has entered the race: @sethmoulton. The accounts that retweet him look similar to several of the amplifiers of several of the other candidates: tweets are mostly in English, they largely link MSM and a couple of left-leaning sources, and use similar hashtags.
