Facebook is becoming so much an everyday part of so many people's lives it appears as if popularity ratings on Facebook may be more accurate than Gallup polls to determine who may be the next president. A new buzz name around Syracuse political circles has been Rick Santorum as also seen in national trends in the aftermath of his sweep of the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses, and the Missouri presidential preference vote last week. This new popularity by Santorum has been relflected by a surge in his Facebook following.
Rachel Van Dongen has reported for Politico "Santorum’s triple win spurs Facebook surge." According to Facebook data which has been provided exclusively to POLITICO Rick Santorum’s Facebook fan base has spiked sharply since he won in three election contests last week. Santorum added 9,000 Facebook fans on Feb. 8, which was the day after he won the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses, and the Missouri presidential preference vote. On that same day second-place finisher Mitt Romney gained about 4,000 fans on Facebook.
However, Romney still holds a wide margin of popularity over Santorum on Facebook. From Jan. 15 to Feb. 9 Romney gained about 162,000 Facebook fans, adding to the roughly 1.3 million he had in mid-January. Santorum had just 75,000 Facebook fans on Jan. 14. With the addition of 49,000 between Jan. 15 and Feb. 9 his rough total came out to 128,000. Meanwhile, Ron Paul had 732,000 fans on Jan. 14 and Newt Gingrich had 228,000 on the same date. And so Facebook is turning out to be one interesting manner to follow trends in political popularity.
