Bernie Sanders Gained The Most Twitter Followers During The GOP Debate

[n2doc]

Twitter's Government and Elections team tracked which 2016 presidential candidates gained the most Twitter followers during the debate, which certainly doesn't account for all voter support, but does give us some idea of how young people particularly responded to the fifth GOP showdown. Surprisingly enough, the candidate who gained the most followers wasn't a Republican, but a Democrat. Bernie Sanders gaining more Twitter followers during the debate than anyone on stage in Las Vegas Tuesday night doesn't bode well for the GOP in the general election.

Largest follower growth (all cands) in #GOPDebate:

1. @BernieSanders
2. @realDonaldTrump
3. @RealBenCarson
4. @marcorubio
5. @tedcruz

After Sanders, Donald Trump's following increased the most, trailed by Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, according to Twitter. Poor Hillary Clinton, left out of all the action. The fifth GOP debate was very chaotic, with a lot of yelling, bickering, and incoherent answers, and was actually pretty difficult to watch. So, it's quite telling that so many people followed Sanders on Twitter as it went down, making it seem like an event meant to promote the Republican party was actually driving voters away. Of course, some people still loyal to the GOP could have followed Sanders out of curiosity or in an effort to stay up-to-date on the election as a whole, but they sure chose a suspicious time to do so.

This single statistic says a lot about how America received the mayhem that was the fifth debate. Sanders was live-tweeting his dissenting opinions throughout the event, which no-doubt played a role in his increased following, but that just means his plan worked — tweeting his liberal opinions while the Republicans duked it out on stage drew people to his campaign. As the Republican frontrunner, Trump also gained a lot of Twitter followers, reaffirming his lead in the GOP race, but even he couldn't outshine Sanders on social media on Tuesday. When someone outperforms Trump on Twitter, you know it's serious.

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http://www.bustle.com/articles/130166-bernie-sanders-gained-the-most-twitter-followers-during-the-gop-debate-which-is-a-bad-sign

[LiberalElite]

1. I have a Twitter account but

have never tweeted anything. I still don't understand # or @. And that's ok.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. @ precedes an accountname. # is a tag for categorization.

So @BernieSanders refers to Bernie's account and searching on #MapleSyrup will turn up all tweets that include that tag.

Twitter doesn't seem to like spaces in either @s or #s.

[SmittynMo]

3. When someone outperforms Trump on Twitter, you know it's serious.

Oh, it's serious. Big time. The snowball is starting to go downhill. One can only imagine how big it will be when it get to the bottom of the hill.

[Ed Suspicious]

4. Hillary supporters reading this news:

Bernie wins the internet today, then on to everywhere.

[RoccoR5955]

6. Don't worry

Clinton will be on twitter in a couple of weeks.

[SoapBox]

10. And she can just ReTweet what Bernie posts!

[arcane1]

11. .

[libdem4life]

5. A stroke of genius ... using Twitter to make them look like the clowns they are, while countering

with his own positions. Definitely, this is not your Mother's Primary.

[arcane1]

9. And it cost NOTHING! :)

[libdem4life]

12. Yep, that's our Budget-conscious Bernie.

Then I heard Hillary did it too...kind of falls into a familiar pattern, no?

[AzDar]

7. K & R

[Fawke Em]

8. He also had the most retweeted post, too.

Still, Sanders sent the most retweeted message of the night, with his tweet stating, "We must combat anti-Muslim bigotry and all forms of discrimination," being shared more than 10,000 times.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/263419-sanders-gets-some-of-most-twitter-engagement-in-gop-debate