THE ECHO: Weekly Roundup of Political Discussion on Twitter (April 12-April 18, 2018)

James Comey’s Book Tour Draws POTUS Tweetstorms, Hannity Named a Cohen Client, Starbucks, Syria, and Russia Conflicts, and Yet Another Close Special Election

Conflict and scandals retained Twitter’s political attention in the United States this week. Former FBI Director James Comey’s memoir rollout drew significant interest and angry rebuttals from the President of the United States. Trump’s personal attorney/fixer was forced to name a high-profile client in Sean Hannity, who non-denied, denied the relationship. The race for Arizona’s eight congressional district closed in on another nailbiter the GOP should have already put away. Starbucks found itself in hot water when a pair of black men were arrested for loitering within minutes of entering the store. Finally, foreign complications in Syria and Russia also drew substantial attention on Twitter.

Comey v. Trump

Once again, it’s worth a reminder that attacking Donald J. Trump attracts a crowd on Twitter. Comey’s takedown of Trump on moral grounds in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopolous help move the release to #1 on Amazon’s “Most Sold” list. Trump, who describes himself as a counterpuncher, did just that and it drew attention for both men on Twitter boosting post volume about Comey 1,061 percent on 3,329,820 related tweets and seven percent for the president on 6,678,167 related tweets.

Hannity v. Cohen

A less self-effacing person with the last name Cohen would be ruing the day his parents decided against Milton in favor of Michael. That person is not me. But my Twitter mentions, and those from Michael D. Cohen, Esq. (@michaelcohen212) were swamped this week as other guy had Fox News host Sean Hannity unveiled as a client but it was a bigger problem for the attorney.

Hannity has 3.6 million followers and got 1,969,841 related tweets this week, up 95 percent from last week. Cohen had 1,128,042 related tweets, up only 12 percent from last week but on more than ten times fewer followers (327,891). Read another way, Hannity’s footprint on the platform is ten times larger than Cohen’s and he only got 2x more tweets this week. Cohen remains in big trouble.

Starbucks v. Black Men

Black Lives Matter got yet another data point in its movement to change how police interact with blacks in America this week. Two black men were arrested in Philadelphia Starbucks last week, charged with trespassing, but they had only been in the store for a few minutes. Again, the key was a viral video and it arrested Starbucks into Twitter crisis management mode on 1,158,072 related tweets, up 1,558 percent from last week. Both men received apologies from Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson, who said he’d close the brand down for racial sensitivity training.

Lesko v. Tipirneni

A sleepy yet competitive special election between Republican Debbie Lesko and Democrat Hiral Tipirneni in Arizona’s eight congressional district is winding down in the familiar 2018 pattern. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A Democrat is coming close in a Trump 20+ district that Cook Political Report Partisan Voting Rating’s has as Republican advantage of over 10 points. An Emerson College poll shows the race too close to call with Lesko ahead by one point, a meaningless difference considering the margin of error. While not dominating headlines, interest in the race and the candidates increased 115 percent over last week to 67,629 related tweets.

USA v. Syria and Russia

Overseas, where generally we find little interest among the U.S. politically-midned Twitterati, tweets about Syria and Russia (separately) were up this week 140 percent and 22 percent, respectively. What is compelling is that there were over three million tweets about Syria while there were over 1.9 million about Russia; not a week for America First on Twitter.

While some tweets about Syria were in reaction to the chemical weapons used on rebels and the U.S. response many were about how a United Nations security team was shot at while inspecting the sites where they might have been used. Tweets about Russia were mainly focused on the scuttled rollout and subsequent kerfuffle about additional sanctions the Trump administration was considering with Nikki Haley, the United States UN ambassador getting the better of Larry Kudlow, who publicly apologized.

“The ECHO” is a publication of The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM). This edition covers political activity on Twitter in the United States April 5–11, 2018. All data from this post, as well as our methodology, is available on our PEORIA Project website and weekly by email (subscribe here). Also available on our website is the first edition of The ECHO Quarterly, summarizing three big things this research can teach campaigns and elected officials.