Did Facebook predict New Mexico’s election?

As New Mexico continues to increase its use of social media, we are going to see a corresponding expansion in the influence it has on local politics. The national trend is reflecting a substantial rise in the use and influence of social media in the political realm, and New Mexico is following this trend line with vigor.

Though our state has the lowest percentage of Facebook users in the country, we are the second fastest growing user base, with a 701 percent growth rate in the past 24 months. Currently, 23 percent of the New Mexico population is on Facebook.¹

The conversations on Facebook on Nov. 2 were dominated by the election. By mid-afternoon, the midterm elections nationwide were already breaking Internet records. At 5 p.m. EST, Internet users were 5.6 million per minute, a 1.4 million user/minute increase from the 2008 Obama victory – which was the fourth-highest traffic day since the 2005 inception of the Net Usage Index for News.

Candidates were posting last-effort calls for voting. People were posting their “I Voted” badges on Facebook and telling friends to go out and vote. As the results rolled in, friends posted good luck wishes, congratulations and condolences on their candidates’ pages.

So how did NM fare in the 2010 social media election?

Social media did play a role in New Mexico’s recent midterm election, although we were about 20 points behind the national trend. Where Facebook might not have been a definitive predictor in the NM election, it was a certainly an influencer.

The majority of statewide elections had active social media campaigns, often with both Facebook profiles and fan pages campaigning in tandem.

National political social media trend:

• 74 percent of House candidates with the most Facebook fans won their races.
• 80 percent of Senate candidates with the most Facebook fans won their races.
• 78 percent of incumbents who lost their seats had fewer fans than their challengers.

New Mexico political social media trend²

• 60 percent of all campaign used Facebook through campaign fan pages or through profiles.
• 57 percent of the winners used Facebook.
• 57 percent of incumbents that were overturned used Facebook.³

This is a list showing candidates, their races, what percent of the vote they had and whether they were on Facebook. “Y” indicates they had either a profile or a fan page on Facebook. The candidates in bold won their races.⁴

Comparison of social media presence and the effect on statewide campaigns⁵

Generally, when a candidate was the incumbent and had a stronger Facebook presence than their challenger, they won their race. In the one race (from the sample below) where the incumbent was overthrown, the challenger had a much stronger Facebook presence than the incumbent. The only race (from the sample below) where a strong social media presence did not result in a win was for the Office of the Secretary of State.

This is a list of candidates showing how many followers and friends they had on their fan page and profile. Candidates with an (i) after their names were the incumbents. Candidates in bold won their races. More candidates had pages than profiles, though candidates with profiles (or both profiles and pages) had a wider reach than candidates with just fan pages. ^{6 & 7}

U.S. Representative District 1 – Both Martin Heinrich and Jon Barela had Facebook fan pages and profiles. Barela’s fan page had a farther reach by 313 fans; Heinrich’s profile had a larger reach by 1,714 friends. Heinrich was the incumbent.

U.S. Representative District 2 – Steve Pearce had a much stronger fan page than Harry Teague, with 2,934 more fans. Pearce overthrew the incumbent.

U.S. Representative District 3 – Ben Ray Luján had a much stronger fan page than Tom Mullins, with 1,218 more fans. Luján was the incumbent.

Governor – Susana Martinez and Diane Denish both had fan pages and profiles. Martinez had a stronger fan page by 6,639 fans. Denish had a stronger profile by 1,360 friends. In this case, Martinez’ reach with her fan page far overshadowed Denish’s reach with her profile.⁶

Secretary of State – Dianna Duran had both a fan page and a profile, whereas incumbent Mary Herrera only had a profile. Herrera’s profile was much stronger by 2,427 friends, but Duran prevailed.

State Auditor – Incumbent Hector Balderas had a very strong presence. His fan page was stronger than Errol Chavez’s by 1,540 fans and his profile was stronger by 4,659 friends.

Attorney General – Gary King, the incumbent, had no Facebook presence, and won his race even though his challenger had a strong profile and fan page.

In the statewide races, Facebook seemed to be both an influencer and a predictor. With the exception of one, the candidates with the strong Facebook presence won their race. Is Facebook becoming the social media equivalent of the exit poll?

¹ N.M. user percentage is based on U.S. Census and Facebook demographics. I focused the social media analysis on Facebook because very few N.M. campaigns used Twitter. Also because Facebook allows for more detailed trending due to availability of detailed user demographics.
²The candidates analyzed and shown are only races that had challengers. Races without challengers were not figured into calculations and their social media presence was not accounted for or analyzed.
³This statistic is based on races where at least one candidate used Facebook. There was only one race in which an incumbent was overturned where neither party used Facebook.
⁴Facebook information was gathered by Lauren MacEwen. Facebook fan pages and profiles were not verified by the candidates, but were determined through content, network associations and candidate web page links. Pages and Profiles were sourced from candidate websites when possible. Due to profile settings of candidates, Lauren MacEwen was not able to determine if all candidate profiles were used for campaign purposes. Due to profile settings, not all candidate profiles may have been found and may therefore not be listed. Profiles and fan pages of candidates were searched for on Google and Facebook as well as cross-referenced with specific network connections to compile as much complete and accurate data as possible.
⁵In the case of commissioner of public lands, where one candidate had a page and the other had a profile, I could not fairly analyze the comparative influence of their social media engagement due to the substantial differences in network growth, ie. active personal networking, ads, organic growth and suggestions.
⁶I did not include the Facebook presences of the lieutenant governor candidates in this analysis. As they were joint tickets I decided to focus on the lead candidates. Additionally I would not have ben able to compare Brian Colón and John Sanchez as as Colón had a significant Facebook presence whereas John Sanchez did not.
⁷Profile and fan page data was collected on November 3, 2010.

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Lauren (Armstrong) MacEwen is the primary social media consultant and strategist for SM Cubed Consulting. Follow her on Twitter. Find her on Facebook. Read her blog.