Lincoln Chafee may be in dead last in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls measuring support for Democratic presidential candidates — coming in at just 0.2 nationwide — but he does lead the pack in one thing: his supporters have the best grammar.
In fact, the former governor and senator of Rhode Island leads candidates in both parties in that regard.
The blog Grammarly did a study of how well supporters conducted themselves grammatically in commenting on candidates’ official Facebook pages.
Looking at how many flubs were made per 1,000 words, Chafee supporters came out on top, committing an average of only 3.1 mistakes. Other Democratic candidates’ supporters scored higher; 3.7 mistakes per 1,000 words for Sen. Bernie Sanders, 4.6 for Martin O’Malley and 6.3 for Hillary Clinton.
Republicans did not fare so well. Carly Fiorina fans scored the best, with 6.3 mistakes per 1,000 words — tied with Hillary Clinton fans. After that, supporters rank as follows: Ben Carson’s at 6.6; Sen. Ted Cruz’s at 7.3; and Jeb Bush’s at 7.9. The three candidates with the most grammatically challenged supporters are Sen. Marco Rubio (8.8 mistakes), Rick Santorum (11.5 mistakes), and Donald Trump, whose backers come in dead last (12.6 mistakes per 1,000 words).
The study methodology, which boasted “a light heart and heavy-hitting algorithms” to devise its rankings, looked at a minimum of 180 Facebook comments by what it classified as supporters of candidates between April and August 2015, where each comment was at least 15 words in length.
