When the Republican presidential candidates took the stage back in August for the first Republican debate, the most talked about political topics on Facebook in the U.S. were racial issues, Mexico, the economy, LGBT issues, and immigration, in that order. Just two months later, that list looks almost entirely different.
As the Democratic candidates prepare to face off for their first debate tonight, religion and guns top Facebook's ranking of popular political topics, followed by the economy, homeland security and terrorism, and racial issues. Mexico, LGBT issues, and immigration have dropped out of the top five altogether.
If Facebook chatter is a good barometer of public sentiment—though that could be a sizable if—then this shift shows just how much our priorities have changed in a short period of time, and just how likely they are to change many times over by November 2016. You can even guess the reasons behind some of the shifts; a mass shooting generating national headlines will elevate the profile of "guns," while a visiting pope likely pushes conversations about religion to the forefront. With thirteen months until ballots are cast, shifting sentiments and national news have plenty of time to generate plenty more turnover. In other words, it's going to be a long, long election season.
Already, Facebook conversation around the candidates, themselves, is beginning to change, too, as Ben Carson has quickly overtaken earlier favorites in the GOP, like Jeb Bush. Meanwhile, Facebook's calculations back in August showed about twice as many people talking about Hillary Clinton as they were about Bernie Sanders. Today, they're nearly neck and neck.
Of course, it's important not to draw many concrete conclusions about what this all means. After all, Facebook analyzes only the volume of conversation, not the context, tone, or sentiment. People complaining about Clinton or Carson register the same as those celebrating them. So it's understandable that some strategists are reluctant to put too much weight on all the social media data being produced this year. And yet, when you see just how closely Facebook's data mimics recent polling activity, the issues and candidates that rise to the top on Facebook become that much tougher to ignore.
