1.
THE YEAR IN ECHOES
(AND OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN CONVERSATION)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MICHAEL CORNFIELD AND
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR LARA BROWN
RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 21, 2016

2.
Using Zignal Labs’ platform, GSPM tracks
the mainstream and social media echoes of
the and
their .

3.
PART ONE
Presidential Chatter

4.
THE “SEMI-VISIBLE” PRIMARY
WINNERS?
MARCH 15, 2015 – JANUARY 17, 2016
Candidates
(Alphabetical
Order, by Party)
Total
Mentions
Net
Sentiment
(%, most
positive)
Mainstream
Media
Mentions
Social
Media
Mentions
Website
Shares
Echo
Conversion
Jeb Bush 5 14 3 5 9 12
Ben Carson 6 1 7 6 11 11
Chris Christie 10 12 8 10 12 14
Ted Cruz 4 7 5 4 1 1
Carly Fiorina 9 5 10 9 10 10
Mike Huckabee 12 13 12 12 8 6
John Kasich 11 3 11 11 7 7
Rand Paul 8 11 9 8 4 2
Marco Rubio 7 8 6 7 5 4
Rick Santorum 13 4 14 13 14 3
Donald Trump 1 6 1 1 6 13
Hillary Clinton 2 10 2 2 3 8
Bernie Sanders 3 2 4 3 2 5
Martin O’Malley 14 9 13 14 13 9

5.
THE “SEMI-VISIBLE” PRIMARY
WINNERS?
MARCH 15, 2015 – JANUARY 17, 2016
Republican Candidates
(Descending Order)
Winners (total
points, lowest
points = best)
Democratic Candidates
(Descending Order)
Winners (total
points, lowest
points = best)
Ted Cruz 1 (22 pts.) Bernie Sanders 1 (19 pts.)
Donald Trump 2 (28 pts.) Hillary Clinton 2 (27 pts.)
Marco Rubio 3 (37 pts.) Martin O’Malley 3 (72 pts.)
Rand Paul 4 – tie (42 pts.)
Ben Carson 4 – tie (42 pts.)
Jeb Bush 5 (48 pts.)
John Kasich 6 (50 pts.)
Carly Fiorina 7 (53 pts.)
Rick Santorum 8 (61 pts.)
Mike Huckabee 9 (63 pts.)
Chris Christie 10 (66 pts.)

6.
Candidates
(Descending Order)
Total Mentions
March 15, 2015 –
January 17, 2016
All Current
Candidates
(share of voice, in %)
Republicans Only
(share of voice, in
%)
Donald Trump 57,427,624 37.7 54.2
Hillary Clinton 24,550,084 16.1 --
Bernie Sanders 20,993,263 13.7 --
Ted Cruz 12,645,053 8.3 11.9
Jeb Bush 7,770,771 5.1 7.3
Ben Carson 6,571,776 4.3 6.2
Marco Rubio 5,473,165 3.6 5.2
Rand Paul 4,499,443 3.0 4.3
Carly Fiorina 3,234,045 2.1 3.1
Chris Christie 2,940,475 1.9 2.8
John Kasich 2,228,874 1.5 2.1
Mike Huckabee 2,070,280 1.4 2.0
Rick Santorum 1,054,703 0.7 1.0
Martin O’Malley 820,495 0.5 1.8
CONVERSATION LEADERS

7.
TRUMP DOMINATED
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
All Candidates Share of Voice (%)
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016

8.
CLINTON & TRUMP
53%
45%
2%
Democratic Share of Voice (%)
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016
Clinton Sanders O'Malley
8%
6%
3%
12%
3%
2%
2%
4%
5%
1%
54%
Republican Share of Voice (%)
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016
Bush Carson Christie Cruz Fiorina Huckabee
Kasich Paul Rubio Santorum Trump

9.
DEMOCRATIC TIME SERIES
4/12: Clinton announces
10/11: Sanders “MTP”
12/13: Sanders in IA
“Weekend of Action”
1/10: Sanders new WSJ/NBC poll
showing tight IA race

10.
DEMOCRATIC NET
SENTIMENT
Note: Net sentiment is measured as the percentage of positive mentions minus the percentage of negative
mentions (similar to “net approval” or “net favorability”). Still, NLP does not capture sentiment all that
indiscriminately. As such, sarcasm (“that’s sick”), disappointment (“that sucks”), or even descriptive facts
(“drops out”) may be included in the mentions count. Net sentiment should, therefore, be seen as a directional
and relational indicator rather than an absolute measure.
-30.0 -20.0 -10.0 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0
Clinton
Sanders
O'Malley
Net Sentiment of Democratic Candidate Mentions (%)
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016

11.
REPUBLICAN TIME SERIES
Note: Legend omits Mike
Huckabee (˜2M mentions) &
Rick Santorum (˜1M mentions).
12/6: Trump Muslim ban
8/23: Trump on “FTN”
3/23: Cruz announces

12.
REPUBLICAN NET
SENTIMENT
-25.0 -20.0 -15.0 -10.0 -5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0
Bush
Carson
Christie
Cruz
Fiorina
Huckabee
Kasich
Paul
Rubio
Santorum
Trump
Net Sentiment of Republican Candidate Mentions (%)
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016
Note: Net sentiment is measured as the percentage of positive mentions minus the percentage of negative
mentions (similar to “net approval” or “net favorability”). Still, NLP does not capture sentiment all that
indiscriminately. As such, sarcasm (“that’s sick”), disappointment (“that sucks”), or even descriptive facts
(“drops out”) may be included in the mentions count. Net sentiment should, therefore, be seen as a directional
and relational indicator rather than an absolute measure.

13.
DEMOCRATS: WHO IS
TALKING ABOUT WHOM?
Candidates Mainstream
Media
March 15,
2015–
January
17, 2016
Social
Media
March 15,
2015–
January 17,
2016
Hillary Clinton 2,904,724 22,142,360
Bernie Sanders 946,176 20,047,087
Martin O’Malley 299,421 521,074
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
Clinton Sanders O'Malley
TotalMentions
Total Media Mentions
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016
Mainstream Media Social Media

14.
REPUBLICANS: WHO IS
TALKING ABOUT WHOM?
Candidates Mainstream
Media
March 15,
2015-
January 17,
2016
Social
Media
March 15,
2015-
January 17,
2016
Jeb Bush 1,278,863 6,491,908
Ben Carson 822,954 5,748,822
Chris Christie 547,942 2,392,533
Ted Cruz 942,931 11,702,122
Carly Fiorina 466,409 2,767,636
Mike Huckabee 326,490 1,743,790
John Kasich 354,065 1,874,809
Rand Paul 538,738 3,992,459
Marco Rubio 889,780 4,583,385
Rick Santorum 177,156 877,547
Donald Trump 2,844,943 54,582,681
Trump: Off the chart again (see table)
0.00
2,000,000.00
4,000,000.00
6,000,000.00
8,000,000.00
10,000,000.00
12,000,000.00
14,000,000.00
TotalMentions
Total Media Mentions
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016
Mainstream Media Social Media

15.
PART TWO
Social media activity by the
candidates and their
campaigns.

16.
TRUMP ON TOP?
ECHO CONVERSION RATES
Candidates
(Descending
Order)
Echo Conversion
(total number of website
shares/total number of social
media mentions, in % for March
15, 2015 – January 17, 2016)
Ted Cruz 5.0
Rand Paul 3.7
Rick Santorum 2.9
Marco Rubio 2.8
Bernie Sanders 2.2
Mike Huckabee 2.1
John Kasich 2.0
Hillary Clinton 1.9
Martin O’Malley 1.5
Carly Fiorina 1.1
Ben Carson 0.5
Jeb Bush 0.5
Donald Trump 0.1
Chris Christie nd
Again, Trump is “off the chart.” His social media mentions
were over 54M, but his website shares were 61,479 – he
comes in second to last on this measure.
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
Social Media Mentions & Website Shares
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016
Social Media Mentions Website Shares

17.
CANDIDATES
SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITY
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
Social Media Activity of the Candidate/Campaign
March 15, 2015 - January 17, 2016
Website Shares Top Campaign Tweet (RTs)
Note: Trump did not have one of his own Tweets in the “top Tweet by RT” category. All of the top
Tweets involving Trump were negative comments about Trump, and each earned more 30,000
RTs.

18.
QUESTIONS?
Graduate School of Political Management @GSPMGWU
John Brandt
Media Relations
johnbrandt@gwu.edu
Michael Cornfield Lara Brown
Associate Professor Associate Professor
corn@gwu.edu larambrown@gwu.edu
Zignal Labs @ZignalLabs
Pete Eskew D.J. Waldow
Head of East Coast Sales Director of Marketing
peskew@zignallabs.com djwaldow@zignallabs.com