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Both #DemDebate and #DemocraticDebate trended immediately prior to, during, and after the first night of the July Democratic presidential debates. We performed some comparative analysis of the traffic mentioning each candidate.
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@ZellaQuixote
cc:
@ZellaQuixote
@ZellaQuixote Which candidates received the most discussion? Warren and Sanders topped the list, followed by Buttigieg and Williamson. We included tweets containing the candidates first name, last name, or Twitter account, excluding common first names that introduced ambiguity.
@ZellaQuixote Next, we performed sentiment analysis on the traffic mentioning each candidate. Overall, the average sentiment scores were higher during the first half of the debate than the second, with John Delaney experiencing the most drastic reduction.
@ZellaQuixote Retweet networks for #DemDebate/#DemocraticDebate tweets mentioning each candidate. This provides some insight into where the negative sentiment for two of the more popular candidates crept in - both Warren and Sanders have sizable clusters of activity from right-wing accounts.
@ZellaQuixote We updated this analysis to include the second night of the second round of Democratic Debates, adding the hashtag #DemDebate2 in addition to #DemDebate and #DemocraticDebate. Overall volume for the two days is roughly equivalent.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
@ZellaQuixote Kamala Harris and Joe Biden joined Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as the most frequently-tweeted-about candidates, followed by Pete Buttigieg, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, and Tulsi Gabbard, all of whom were mentioned at least 100,000 times.
@ZellaQuixote Retweet networks for night 2 candidates. The interaction between Tulsi Gabbard and Kamala Harris over Harris' prosecutorial record resulted in major right-wing accounts being in the same cluster as Gabbard in her own network, and less distinct left/right separation in Harris'.
@ZellaQuixote Onward to sentiment analysis. Overall, sentiment trended negative, although the dip in sentiment for Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders following the first debate reversed itself, likely due to #MAGA accounts moving on to attacking night 2 candidates.
@ZellaQuixote This is the opposite of the result we saw when we performed a similar analysis on traffic for the June debates, btw - average sentiment trended slightly upward over the two days of that round of debates.
@ZellaQuixote Finally, we compared #DemDebate/#DemDebate2/#DemocraticDebate volume for each candidate between the June and July debates (omitting Eric Swalwell, who dropped out.) Warren and Sanders both experienced substantial increases in volume, while Booker, Castro, and O'Rourke declined.
