Despite the results of the Iowa caucus and South Carolina primary, if you look at Facebook, Mitt Romney is ahead by a huge margin. Total visits to the Facebook pages of the presidential candidates highlights the growth to Mitt Romney’s Facebook page over the past few weeks, visits have jumped 248% last week as compared to the week ending Dec, 24, 2011. In comparison, the volume of total visits to Mitt Romney’s Facebook page was 1.7x that of Ron Paul’s page and 2.5x the total visits of Barack Obama’s page.
The visitors to the Facebook page for Mitt Romney during the last 4 weeks tend to be over 35 years old and somewhat less affluent with an annual household income under $100,000.
The top 4 states ranked by share of visits accounted for 35% of all visits over the last 4 weeks. Ohio and Utah were the states with the highest share of visits and aligns with the top DMAs for the Romney Facebook page – Cleveland, Ohio and Salt Lake City, Utah. Florida, an important state with an upcoming primary, ranked fourth with just over 5% of all.
While these measures alone are not enough to secure the nomination, this is a positive sign for the Romney campaign that social efforts are gaining attention and building an audience on Facebook.
For the latest data on the 2012 Elections, please visit our Politics Data Center.