Drew Margolin, a professor of communication at Cornell University who studies human dynamics through social media, has been tracking how the electorate reacts to presidential candidates on Twitter since the beginning of the primaries. Using a new method of real-time analysis, Margolin and his collaborator, Yu-Ru Lin of the University of Pittsburgh, predict Republican nominee Donald Trump won’t pick up a post-convention bounce within the GOP.Bio: https://communication.cals.cornell.edu/people/drew-margolinMargolin says:
“People were paying attention, and they liked his lead-in. But what comes next is not as encouraging.
“During and after his speech, Trump himself drew relatively positive language from only one group, Trump Defectors, the people who dropped their original GOP candidate and now follow Trump. Other groups contain those who are resistant to him or may not have made up their mind, and none of them showed a tendency to talk about Trump in relatively positive terms during or after his speech.
“The speech did appear to help Trump in one way. It seemed to eliminate the effect of Cruz’s non-endorsement, at least for the time being. From the beginning of the convention until Cruz’s speech last night, the Trump Dumpers – people who used to follow Trump but don’t any longer – had talked about Trump in relatively neutral, sometimes positive terms. During and after Cruz’s speech Wednesday night, however, their tone became negative. That pattern actually carried over to Thursday night, but Trump’s speech appears to have neutralized this.
“Trump’s goal with the convention, and his speech in particular, was not just to neutralize a resistance movement, it was to generate more positive feeling toward him among all groups – those who love him, those on the fence, and those who are skeptical. Here, there is no evidence that Trump’s speech was a success.
“Overall, our data from every night of the convention suggests that, with Republicans at least, Trump should not expect much of a convention ‘bounce.’ At this point, we can say that there is no evidence from Twitter that the convention unified the Republican Party or gave Trump momentum.”NOTE: More data and analysis from Thursday night and the full week of the Republican National Convention can be found at, http://cornellcals.tumblr.com/tagged/Election-2016-Tweets.Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews.- 30 -
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