US Elections and Social Media Opinion [Charts]

On the eve of the US elections, the race for the White House is neck and neck. It looks like a handful of swing states will decide the outcome, but on social media it is Obama that has the upper hand.

For 7 days we have tracked mentions of both candidates using social media monitoring tool Sentiment Metrics. The total buzz volume for the two candidates was very close, with Obama holding a slender lead with 656,707 mentions to Romney’s 655,634.

On its own that tells us very little, but if we drill into the sentiment we can see that Obama is generating more positive buzz and fewer negative mentions (see graphs below).

BBC’s polltracker currently gives Obama a lead of 49% – 48%, but it would seem things are not so close where social media is concerned. Translating the net positive mentions (positive mentions – negative mentions) into a percentage gives Obama a lead of 53% to 47%.

The searches targeted all mentions from within the US.  Although it is unlikely that social media is representative of the population as a whole, it will be interesting to see how this reflects the eventual outcome.