President Obama's Twitter approval rating on the economy is as low as the unemployment rate is high: about 8%.
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By Edward Linsmier, Getty Images
Tweets referencing President Obama and the economy have been consistently negative, according to a breakdown of the Twitter Political Index.
By Edward Linsmier, Getty Images
Tweets referencing President Obama and the economy have been consistently negative, according to a breakdown of the Twitter Political Index.
A breakdown of the Twitter Political Index, which analyzes the favorability of tweets mentioning Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, shows that tweets discussing Obama and the economy are consistently gloomy.
Between May 3 and July 23, Obama's economic Twindex score has ranged from 7 to 13 — meaning that every day the tweets were more negative than over 85% of Twitter conversations about other topics.
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INTERACTIVE: USA TODAY/Twitter Election Meter
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STORY: Twitter index tracks sentiment on Obama, Romney
"People are still looking at unemployment numbers over 8%, and don't have anything good to say about the economy. That shows up in the Twindex data pretty clearly," says Jon McHenry, the Republican pollster who helped create the index.
The Twitter index — which drives the USA TODAY/ Twitter Election Meter http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/twitter-election-meter— analyzes about 2 million tweets weekly to evaluate how favorably the candidates are viewed in tweets about them.
For a breakdown by issues, social media analysts Topsy Labs searched for key words and looked at tweets that mentioned Obama or Romney and particular issues: health care, the economy, and defense or foreign policy. The analysis compares candidate-issue tweets to the entire Twitterverse, not to other tweets about the issue or the candidate.
The analysis considered 398,125 tweets regarding the candidates and the economy, 305,183 tweets on the candidates and health care, and 156,453 tweets discussing foreign policy and Obama or Romney. Obama shows up by name more than twice as often as Romney in tweets on these topics and on Twitter in general.
Romney's ratings in the economy tweets also were largely negative. Even though Romney's campaign has tried to make his economic bona fides a central point, the Obama campaign should be pleased that the Republican nominee "has not engendered that much interest, either" says Mark Mellman, the Democratic pollster on the Twindex project. Romney's rating spiked into positive territory — slightly above neutral — just once, June 10. That was two days after Obama said "the private sector is doing fine," which enraged Republicans.
The consistency of economy-related tweets is a sharp contrast to tweets about health care and defense, which Mellman describes as "a robust discussion on both sides of the issue." In the run-up to the June 28 Supreme Court ruling that upheld Obama's health care overhaul and in the aftermath, partisan tweeters defended their candidates' positions, says Adam Sharp, Twitter's head of government, news and services. That led to spikes in favorable tweets for both Obama and Romney.
Some of the fluctuation in Romney tweets is due to internal debate among opponents of Obama's health care overhaul, says conservative blogger Erick Erickson of RedState.
"There's been a ton of conversation the past few months on Twitter debating what Romney should do"' — push for total repeal or incremental change in the law, he said.
