Happy New Year! As the calendar turned, here’s a snapshot of the 14th district candidates social media followers
Social media followers by descending order of Twitter followers for the Republicans, captured between 12:01AM and 12:14AM 1/1/20, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood political social media at bottom for reference:
| Candidate/Media | Twitter 1/1 | Twitter % Change | Twitter 12/1 | ||
| Lauf | 40,457 | 17,876 | 8,777 | 34% | 30,234 |
| Marter | 5,212 | N/A | 6,605 | 458% | 934 |
| Evans | 1,174 | 61 | 171 | 207% | 383 |
| Oberweis | 851 | N/A | 3,233 | 6% | 802 |
| Gradel | 428 | N/A | 604 | 48% | 290 |
| Rezin | 212 | N/A | 6,832 | 80% | 118 |
| Catella | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Underwood | 94,983 | 19,673 | 18,901 | 4% | 91,769 |
Should be noted, Jerry Evans passed Jim Oberweis to be #3 in the number of Twitter followers at the start of 2020.
Catalina Lauf continued to hold her commanding lead and grew her Twitter following by over 10,000 followers from December 1 to January 1.
With the exception of Oberweis, all of the Republicans saw significant growth in their respective Twitter followers, with James Marter surging to over 5,000 during the month of December.
Whether all of the social media activity also contributes to campaign fundraising will be known between now and the evening of January 15.
Social media has little to no effect in money raising, or other support in GOP primaries, unless the primary voters are young and more liberal.
Among Republicans it is relatively new, but let’s see the FEC quarterlies in 2 weeks and see if there are any correlation.
Who the hell cares about Twitter and FB?
Instagram? Twitter? really?