President Trump undeniably dominates Twitter. But when it comes to Facebook and Instagram, Democrats are running the game.
So far this election cycle, Democrats are drawing in far more shares, comments, and likes than Republicans on the two platforms, analysis from The New York Times found. Yet in some of the the closest Senate and gubernatorial races, Republicans tend to end up on top.
Across a 30-day period, Democrats running for the House, Senate, and governors' seats got a combined 15.1 million Facebook interactions to Republicans' 5.4 million, per the Times' analysis. Democrats running for Senate propelled that lead, drawing 10 million engagements to Republicans' 2.2 million. That's mostly thanks to a few superstar candidates — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) — who tallied 86 percent of Democratic Senate candidates' Facebook engagements. Instagram, meanwhile, tips even further in Democrats' favor.
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But in a few Senate races that are down to the wire, Republicans have managed to topple Democrats' Facebook advantage. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) got 15,000 more Facebook likes, shares, and comments than her opponent, former Gov. Phil Bredesen (D), the Times shows. Blackburn leads Bredesen by an average of 6.5 points across polls, per RealClearPolitics. Tight Senate races in Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, and Arizona similarly saw Republicans on top. And in many of those same races, Republicans saw a 94 percent boost in Facebook engagement after Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Senate testimonies.
The Times looked at more than 53,000 posts from nearly every Republican or Democrat running for the House, Senate, or a governor's seat to complete its analysis. Check out more data at The New York Times.
