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YAAAS KWEEEN: Kamala continues to dominate social media among 2020 Dems

We previously wrote about how Kamala Harris was dominating social media among 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, giving her a potentially huge leg up in the contest. But today, there’s fresh data showing the true extent of Harris’ clout. Via CrowdTangle (as reported by Axios): Instagram interactions: Harris: 8.3 million Sanders: 4.6 million Warren: 2 million Twitter interactions (combining Senate and personal accounts): Harris: 14.4 million Sanders: 8 million Warren: 4.1 million On Facebook, Harris doesn’t fare as well– Sanders gets about 10x the interactions with 22.1 million to Harris’ 2.4 million and Warren’s 2.3 million. Still, per analytics firm NewsWhip, articles about Harris have earned “16.5 million interactions on Facebook and from shares on influential Twitter accounts.” Warren comes in second with 14.2 million and Sanders third with 10.6 million. And Harris has added more fans on Facebook according to CrowdTangle in the last quarter than any other 2020 prospect (123,000; Beto O’Rourke is next with 51,000). Ditto Instagram…

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Garcetti facing political peril as LA teachers’ strike enters day two

Los Angeles teachers began a strike Monday that could imperil LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s possible run for president. Garcetti, looking happier than he probably is this morning. Photo via Wikipedia. The Los Angeles Unified School District is the second-largest school district in the country. It serves approximately half a million students. Parents want a short strike. Taxpayers want few to no concessions. And unions want higher pay and at least some concessions. If not resolved on its own and quickly, it’s a political conundrum for Garcetti. According to The Hill, “In internal debates about how to build a campaign, Garcetti’s aides have acknowledged he cannot possibly launch a bid while teachers in his own city are on the picket line, according to sources involved in the conversations.” However, Garcetti has little control over how this plays out. The Los Angeles Unified School District is an independent body. It is accountable to…

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Kamala Harris is the Queen (almost) of Twitter

As U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris launches her bid for President, new data shows she is the third most powerful politician on Twitter, besting both former President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. According to data assembled by CrowdTangle, a social media analysis tool, and published by Axios  Harris gets more retweets and likes than every politician and political news handle bar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Donald Trump. That prominence in social media could be a huge advantage to Harris as she launches her presidential campaign. Social media presence correlates strongly with overall media coverage. Presidential campaign veterans view a candidate’s proportion of media coverage, or “media share” as arguably the most important metric in determining who will win a nomination, and a general election. According to Jeff Roe, former campaign manager for Sen. Ted Cruz during his presidential campaign run, the two most significant metrics are media share and small-dollar fundraising. U.S.…

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Devin Nunes won with less than 53 percent; says it’s all down to “ballot harvesting”

Rep. Devin Nunes, who normally wins his races with 70 percent of the vote but ended up squeaking a win with just 52.7 percent in 2018, has reportedly been telling conservatives in Washington, DC, and around the country that the reason his Democratic opponent got within six points of him wasn’t his bevy of ethics problems, him hitching his wagon to Donald Trump, his total non-focus on local issues, or his family’s exposed move years back to Iowa. In fact, according to Nunes, his 2018 close run was all down to “ballot harvesting.” Devin Nunes tries hard to think of any plausible excuse beyond mere suckage for his bad 2018 midterm performance. Ballot harvesting is a practice by which third parties collect paper votes and then deliver them to election officials (or, if you live in North Carolina’s 9th district, by which said third parties totally do not collect and…

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2020 Watch: Iowa Democrats really just not that into California Dems, it seems

CNN has its first numbers for prospective Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa, the first caucus state in 2020, and the news is not pretty for California Democrats. Sitting atop the pile in a cluttered field is former Veep Joe Biden with 32 percent, followed by laggard Bernie Sanders with 19 percent and Beto O’Rourke at 11 percent. No other Democrat gets into double digits. And Sen. Kamala Harris is the only prospective candidate from California who manages above 1 percent. Harris comes in fifth with a whopping five percent. Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell and Eric Garcetti all manage less than 1 percent according to the poll. Why are Iowans just not that into Californians? It could be that culturally, even among progressives, Iowa is pretty different to California. Iowa is obviously a whiter state than the Golden State. It’s over 90 percent white, including about 5.6 percent of the population…

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