4 pm news Iowa and New Hampshire

The 4:00 p.m. news

Iowa and New Hampshire are tiny states. They are first in the nation because they are almost the only electoral venues in which candidates actually have to talk to voters. That does not preclude TV advertising, but they are, as is often noted, retail politics.

Twitter, on the other hand, is not retail politics. It is national, it is global in its reach. And anyone can put their 140 characters 'in.' [I like that: from two cents to 140 characters.] We know that Iowans and New Hampshire-ites do not dominate Twitter messaging about the candidates.

But in some way the political campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire have had what seems to made a big difference in Twitter communication. These are the counts as of 4:00 p.m. the day of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire election.

Candidate	4:00 Iowa	4:00 New Hampshire
Romney	36,045	53,256
Ron Paul	33,275	17,776
Santorum	35,989	16,741
Gingrich	10,289	12,875
Huntsman	481	3,682
Perry	3,586	2,835
Total	119.665	107,165

Total number of Twitter messages is down 12K, and that does not count ignoring Bachmann's 7,431 tweets.

Romney is run away leading. Ron Paul and Santorum are both down by half. Gingrich gained 2,500. Huntsman had a dramatic increase, but at 481 to 3,682 it is hard to say he is developing a following. However, Huntsman may have convinced a 'respectable' number of New Hampshire-ites to vote for him. That is what the polls have suggested.

An interpretation of the New Hampshire results based on daily addition of friends on Facebook arrives at essentially the same ranking of candidates. (Hartman)

It's almost all over except for the counting.

Reference

Hartman, Richard (1/8/2012) Facebook predicts Ron Paul to be top contender in New Hampshire, OhMyGov