Republican U.S. Senate candidate Peter Schiff might win. The financial pundit, author and broker from Weston has a whopping 21,518 fans. (And that’s not even counting the 7,122 fans on his official “Peter Schiff for Senate” page.)
Democrat Richard Blumenthal has a respectable 9,582 Facebook fans and Republican Linda McMahon has 7,676. Her arch enemy, fellow Republican Rob Simmons, brings up the rear with 2,772 fans.
On Twitter, Schiff also leads the pack with 3,486 followers (even though his last tweet was on Jan. 17.) McMahon has 3,326 Twitter followers (last tweet — about 1:10 this afternoon) and Simmons has 1,850 (last tweet — yesterday.)
Blumenthal, by the way, has 192 followers on Twitter and has only one tweet, which came on Jan. 8, two days after he announced that he was entering the race.
Many candidates like to tout their fluency in social media but does it translate into votes?
Most of the posts and tweets are bland statements similar to the pronouncements found on the campaign websites. Blumenthal’s Facebook wall is an exception: tucked among the numerous posts from fans lauding his work as attorney general — “You are a great man and have done so much for the weak, timid and underprivileged…” — are several personal pleas for help.
And then there’s Merrick Alpert. Earlier this week, Ted Mann of The Day took note of the slightly dreamy, stream-of-consciousness tweets from the longshot Democrat.