COVID-19 and the Democratic Nomination
We reported last week that Civil Rights and Discrimination, Healthcare and Economy were the most referenced issues in people’s tweets about the Democratic candidates between January 1st and March 8th. We also said that attention to issues is dynamic and changing across the three months. Defense attracted more attention during January around the time of escalating tensions with Iran but lost steam as an issue by the first week of February.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared coronavirus COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11th – the first such declaration since the H1NI “swine flu” outbreak in 2009. Over the last week, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States increased exponentially, leading to widespread school closures, travel restrictions, and bans on mass gatherings. The speed with which the crisis has reoriented online discussions about the Democratic nomination is stunning. The timeline of the word clouds below speak louder than any words that we can write (no pun intended!).
Click the image to see the original post and animated visualization.
Healthcare has now shot to the top of the issues and shows up in 26% of all the tweets related to the Democratic nomination between March 9th and March 17th – a total of more than a million tweets (1,061,274) in a 9 day period. Reflecting the enormous uncertainty and anxiety brought about by the crisis, the Economy is the next most tweeted about issue, accounting for 12% of all the tweets (588,196) during the same period. Civil rights and discrimination remains one of the most frequently referenced issues, although it now accounts for only 9% (589,018) of all the tweets in the period.
The chart below summarizes the movements in the top 10 issues over the last 9 days. Two new issues – Campaign and election reform and Democracy – entered into the top 10 issues and Economic inequality and Defense and foreign policy fell off the list.
It’s probably not surprising that Economy, Poverty, and Labor have risen on our list given the enormous toll of the crisis on employment and the markets and the ongoing debates over how the government should respond to the economic fallout. The arrival of Democracy and Campaign and election reform into the top-10 list of issues also likely reflects the COVID-19 crisis, as states decide whether to proceed with their primary elections as scheduled.
To date, our analyses have focused on social media discussions about the candidates vying for the Democratic Party’s nomination. Joe Biden now has a substantial delegate lead over Sanders but whether the Vermont Senator drops out is unclear. There is some speculation that he will remain in the race – at least for some time – in a bid to keep his progressive positions and issues on the Democratic agenda. And so, we will continue to track the ebb and flow of issues in people’s tweets about the Democratic candidates and begin to take a more in-depth look into the dynamics of issue attention over the course of the campaigns.