The basic cluster dendrogram over the last three weeks reveals three distinct sub-topics.

 

The first category is a widely re-tweeted message:

#WakeUpAmerica✅DEMAND✅VOTER✅IDENTITY✅ INTEGRITY#TCOT#YCOT#PJNET#COSProject#Election2016

There are slight variations that include some other references such as “@truethevote,” but the general purpose of this category seems to be a claim related to voter fraud. The poster is a part of an active Twitter network that circulates Tea Party related messages. This network is very small and highly active, if I re-modeled to exclude retweets they would likely fall away entirely. There is little doubt that this network is quite artificial. This particular network seems to like Trump and Carson, and strongly dislike Clinton, Rubio, and Bush. They don’t seem to have a lot of activity related to Fiorina or Sanders.

The second topics seem to be a cluster on other candidates with one side twisting toward Walker and Sanders. Fiorina has an entire sub-section, with no reference outside of that sub-section.

The last cluster of the dendrogram includes references to Bush, Trump and Carson.

Clearly there is a strong anti-Clintion sentiment and a strong Tea Party resonance, but the real flow of Tweets seems to be related to the idea of a pure populist rage that occasionally includes references to particular candidates. This is not candidate advocacy.

I may need to find a new approach to cleaning the data…