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Castro, Klobuchar put voting rights at forefront of social media efforts

The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumApr 10, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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The Washington Post recently released a nifty analysis of the policy issues most often mentioned on social media last month by the candidates seeking or exploring the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Post analyzed more than 5,600 social media posts from 15 candidates, coding keywords under eight broad categories. Policy-centric posts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that included terms such as "electoral college," "filibuster" or "gerrymandering," for instance, were tagged as posts on "Voting Rights." "Campaign finance," "monopolies" and "lobbyists" fell under "Corporate Power."

Julian Castro, who served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, topped the list of candidates in the percentage of his policy posts that focused on voting rights (22 percent). Sen. Amy Klobuchar (20 percent) was second. For both candidates, voting rights was their top policy issue on social media, according to the analysis.

Warren was first among candidates in the percentage of policy posts mentioning "corporate power" — 30 percent — although "a significant portion" of those posts were solely on "her plan to break up Amazon, Google and Facebook," the Post explains.

Klobuchar (13 percent), Sen. Bernie Sanders (12 percent) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (11 percent) were the other candidates whose percentages reached double digits on the issue of "corporate power."

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