Currently winning Twitter: the Republican party. According to an Edelman study of 456 congressional Twitter accounts, Republican lawmakers use the social media site more effectively than Democrats. GOP members received more mentions, replies and retweets, and they boasted high numbers in the study’s ranking of the most influential and popular representatives. The study deemed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the member with the most influence on Twitter, followed by Republicans John Boehner, Darrell Issa and John McCain.
In an unexpected bipartisan finding, the study also showed that members of Congress like to tweet at one another across party lines. Nearly half of the members analyzed had mentioned a member of the opposing political party on Twitter, and more than half of those tweets were “collaborative.” Aw.
