To this point in the election, there has been no interesting news on the Democratic side apart from the rumors that Biden may enter the election. From a social media perspective, I have yet to see much by way of O’Malley activity. Unlike his Republican counterparts, he may actually gain from the primary/caucus process as people might recognize his name more than they did before. Once we start talking about a Biden-Clinton primary race, then there might be some interesting activity on Twitter. Bernie Sanders has some real Twitter energy, although this has yet to translate into the polls in any meaningful way.
On the Republican side, there is more action. Six weeks ago, the race was unclear. Then Donald Trump happened. This is a welcome development, not because of the normative policy positions of Trump, but because of his propensity to shatter the silly horserace narrative. No, the people of Iowa never had a love-affair with a pro-choice New Jersey governor. Stories touting his “narrow path” to the nomination were mendacious. Pundits arguing that Trump would simply fade away should be viewed with suspicion. There is no historical example of a candidate that simply disappeared at this point in the race. Trump is an energy-candidate that is a short-circuit in the Republican approach to harnessing anger. Instead of allowing rage toward Liberals, minorities, women or other groups to remain contained yet channeled behind a marginally electable candidate, Trump directly charged by this energy, rather than carefully surfing the wave. (My personal pick a month ago had been a brokered convention with Romney winning).
Rage could be a non-renewable resource. Allowing the extreme right wing to attack the center right and divisive public debates on issues ranging from sexual violence to torture to happen in an unrestrained, fully bombastic mode might change affective landscape. Trump is an affective natural gas flare at an oil well. What he burns now to accelerate the pace of his campaign could change the future affective well of the race. Notice the range of attempts to burn even larger affective reserves: Cruz with a bacon machine gun, Hucakbee making a comment about ovens, Christie vocalizing his desire to punch the teacher’s union in the face. I am sure there are more. The point: the affective tone is a cacophony, loud and dissonant. Adding more shocking, outrageous bits could have little impact.
Here is some data:
As you can see, Immigration issues (#tntvote is pro-comprehensive immigration reform), is running relatively even with other major hashtags on the mainline, #election2016. Total reach for this hashtag is roughly under 35 million.
#Trump2016 on the other hand has a reach of nearly 45 million alone. This is important. Major hashtags for the other candidates have yet to mature.
As the flow of information develops through the debates, it seems likely that Trump will only get stronger.