This time last year I was holed up in a West Chester, OH, office, herding volunteers out the door to canvas for the 2008 Presidential election. While I certainly enjoy being away from campaign politics – more than 3 hours sleep a night is a good thing – I can’t stay away completely.
Below, I’ve included everything you need to track today’s election results and developments on Twitter. It includes a breakdown of the Twitter handles for the candidates in the 5 major elections taking place today, as well as any pertaining hashtags.I also included the hashtags for the Maine referendum on marriage equality, as it’s gaining traction in the Tweetdom.
Previously, Three Ships Media explored the role that Twitter and emerging media have played in the VA race, and have monitored how it’s taken hold among Democrats and Republicans in general (the results may surprise you), so we wanted to continue keeping an eye out for any major breakthroughs on the political social media front.
- Will voters use Twitter to report suspected voter fraud?
- Will candidates go on a negative binge in the waning hours to swing last-minute votes?
- Will preliminary results come via Twitter?
We don’t know, but we’ll find out. (NOTE: General Hashtags are #election, #Election09)
Maine, Repeal Marriage Equality:
- #VoteNoOn1, “In Maine, people are voting today (Nov. 2, 2009) on whether or not to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage. Voting “No” means you want to keep the law in place.”
- #VoteYesOn1 – not necessarily surprising in such an overwhelmingly blue state, this tag has only seen two mentions
New Jersey, Governor: #takenjforward, #njgov,
- John Corzine, http://twitter.com/JonCorzine #Corzine
- Chris Christie, http://twitter.com/ChristieforNJ #Christie
- Chris Daggett, http://twitter.com/ChrisDaggett #Daggett
New York, 23rd Congressional: #ny23
- Bill Owens, no Twitter handle #Owens
- Doug Hoffman, no Twitter handle #Hoffman
- Dede Scozzafava (no longer in the race) – http://twitter.com/DedeScozzafava (no activity since October 31st)
Virginia, Governor: #vagov, #virginia
- Bob McDonnell, http://twitter.com/bobmcdonnell #mcdonnell
- Creigh Deeds, http://twitter.com/CreighDeeds (probably one of the most personality driven political feeds around – it’s almost definitely Deeds) http://twitter.com/Joe_Abbey#deeds (this is Deeds’ campaign manager Joe Abbey – very active)
New York City, Mayor: #NYC
- Michael Bloomberg, http://twitter.com/mikebloomberg; http://TWEEToutTheVoteNYC.com; #WorldSeries#Yankees (NOTE: Bloomberg, or perhaps Bloomberg’s staff, really gets it. They’ve incorporated World Series and Yankee hashtags to gain greater visibility for Bloomberg with the buzz currently surrounding the series, and they have created a tweet out the vote website that redirects to Bloomberg’s page with a Twitter-specific message and directions. Savvy.)
- Bill Thompson, http://twitter.com/Thompson2009. Thompson is no slouch either – so far this morning he has done a masterful job of broadcasting his whereabouts and encouraging activity by singling out boroughs with hashtags (#Brooklyn, #Manhattan, #Queens, #Harlem)
California, 10th Congressional: #ca10
- Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi http://twitter.com/JohnGaramendi #Garamendi
- Republican David Harme http://twitter.com/Harmer4Congress #cagop #harmer
