Despite a late surge in social media momentum by the
challenger Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney’s negative traditional media campaign in
Florida propelled him to victory. Analysis of social media trends continues to
be a powerful tool to predict election outcomes but is also proving to be an
important tool to monitor campaign tactic success or failure in real-time.
Source: OhMyGov Media Monitoring
Although Gingrich gained a modest bump Facebook fans
immediately after his decisive win in South Carolina, his chief challenger did
also. As attention turned to Florida and the Romney campaign fought back hard
with a viciously negative television ad campaign against Gingrich, we see
Gingrich’s momentum in the leading social media indicator steadily decline
while Romney remained consistent and continued to add 5,000 to 6,000 fans per
day.
As Gingrich turned in lackluster performances in debates on
January 23 and 26, his momentum continued to stall until the day before the
primary when he unleashed an unconventional “money bomb” campaign via Twitter.
This strategy may have been too late to make a difference in
Florida, but Gingrich is clearly looking ahead to the next contests. With 95%
of the delegates still up for grabs and Gingrich vowing to stay in it until the
convention, the race will go on.
The bottom line: Romney’s sizable war chest and success
using negative TV advertising against Gingrich gives him a clear advantage, but
Gingrich maintains a strong social media presence and shouldn’t be counted out
yet.
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