Congrats, Congressional Republicans — you’re winning the Twitters so far in 2014!
According to an study of the numbers byWashington Post graphics editor Christopher Ingraham, Republicans have, on average, more followers than Democrats. In the House, the median Republican has about 13 percent more followers than the median Democrat. In the Senate, that gap is 17.9 percent. In total, Democrats have 5.5 million followers, while Republicans have 7.2 followers.
The most-followed individual in both chambers is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), with almost 1.9 million followers. The next closest member is Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), with almost 1.5 million followers. Booker built up his Twitter following while serving as Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, before being elected to the Senate. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) ranks as the third most-followed member of Congress, with more than 600,000. Of the top 10 members with the most followers, seven are Republicans.
In the smaller chamber, where all 100 Senators have Twitter accounts, the five least-followed Senators are all Democrats.
Ingraham’s research also revealed that Republican members of Congress follow more people, on average, perhaps making them more informed about what their constituents care about and the national conversation. And when it comes to frequency of tweets, seven out of the top 10 most-frequent tweeters are also Republicans.
The one category in which Democrats — at least the Senate Democrats, that is — come out on top? Number of tweets. The median House Republican, with 1,282 tweets, beats the median House Democrat, with 986 tweets — a margin of 26 percent. But the Democrats on the Senate side tweet more than anyone else, with a median of 1,792, beating Senate Republicans, who have a median of 1,605.
Of course, Republican dominance on Twitter is no surprise. At last year’s Netroots Nation, a progressive conference, panelists noted that Twitter users on the Right side of the aisle, like Michelle Malkin, presented a problem for the Left. Granted, the panelists were talking about activists, not member of Congress, but it seems like the GOPers in the House and Senate have picked up on what a valuable tool Twitter can be.
