We counted Facebook followers for the candidates at noon on Wednesday and again on noon Thursday, to see how many new followers might have been attracted by the debate performance and coverage.
Rick Perry is supposed to be the new entrant who is gaining momentum, and he certainly picked up some followers. But the real surge is Ron Paul, who finished second at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa last month, and won this debate at least on Facebook.
Candidate Wed Noon Thu Noon Pickup Ron Paul 495,011 497,643 2,632 Rick Perry 148,846 151,275 2,429 Mitt Romney 1,100,647 1,102,028 1,381 Herman Cain 171,512 172,534 1,022 Jon Huntsman 15,257 16,270 1,013 Newt Gingrich 146,042 146,512 470 Rick Santorum 27,009 27,158 149 Michele Bachmann 462,347 462,184 -163
Michele Bachmann, queen for a day at Ames, has stalled. She actually lost followers during the debate day. Mitt Romney continues to roll along, but clearly the man who is still the front-runner on Facebook faces a challenge from two Texans, not just one.
Ron Paul is also pummeling Rick Perry with this ad for being a cheerleader for Al Gore back in 1988:
Ron Paul is getting under Rick Perry's skin. You can see that in this picture of Rick putting his hand on Ron's while waving his finger in Ron's face.
By comparison, Barack Obama picked up 16,007 followers on Facebook in our 24 hour window. So he's not sweating this debate as he prepares for his big speech tonight.
1 comment:
Great idea on the facebook analysis...interesting!
Any idea what the conversation was that matched the pic you posted on Paul and Perry?
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