Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul may be trailing in the polls, but he is the only politician with positive Twitter buzz, according to a new study.
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism -- which analyzes online conversation, news coverage and more than 20 million tweets about politics over the past seven months -- found that 55% of Paul’s Twitter followers had positive things to say about him. Only 15% expressed negative opinions.
Other politicians haven’t been so lucky. Tweets about five of the seven GOP presidential hopefuls expressed negative feedback by a margin of about two to one. President Barack Obama hasn’t fared well either -- negative comments about him on Twitter outweigh the positives by three to one.
The report also finds that Twitter and blogs produce harsher comments overall about candidates compared to traditional news coverage. There has also been some notable shifts in the tone of opinions on Twitter for several GOP hopefuls since October – most notably, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Republican candidate and businessman Herman Cain, who has since dropped out of the race amid allegations of participating in sexual affairs and abuse. The three politicians experienced their most negative Twitter feedback in the past eight weeks. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich had his first week of more positive than negative comments the week of Oct. 24.
Gingrich is the politician with the biggest surge in polling numbers in the last month, but he received only a minimal improvement in the tone of his overall news coverage. Until recently, he had the most unflattering narrative in news coverage of any GOP contender, with 17% positive, 33% negative and 50% neutral, the report says.