In the Inbox, Huckabee Beats Clinton

(The Presidential Email Project, June — July 2015)

I’ve subscribed to the email lists of every 2016 presidential candidate. I read every email and track the topics covered, key phrases mentioned and other interesting statistics. Every couple of weeks I’ll report on trends that I’m seeing. You can read more about my methodology here. This is the first post in the series, covering June and July, 2015.

Summary: 539 Emails in 61 Days

When I started subscribing to the email lists of presidential candidates in late May, there were two things that I didn’t realize: First, just how many people would end up running for president. Second, just how often those candidates would communicate with me. Knowing either one of these facts up front might have halted this project before it began.

Over June and July, as the number of candidates running for President of the United States steadily increased, my inbox became cluttered with admonitions of President Obama, declarations of independence from lobbyists, and more requests for donations than I had ever anticipated.

Out of the 19 candidates I followed(1) Mike Huckabee was the most vociferous, sending a total of 83 emails. Hillary Clinton followed closely with 77 messages. Lincoln Chafee sent me just one. Here’s the breakdown for all candidates:

In total, I received (and read) 539 emails, 297 in June and 242 in July:

But those emails were not spread out evenly over two months. You can see the breakdown every ten days here:

Candidates emailed most often at the end of the month, when they try to bring in as much money through donations as possible. In particular, candidates pushed hard for contributions at the end of the fiscal quarter in June. Each was required to report a Q2 fundraising total in July and, as many noted in emails, more money raised would signal a healthy campaign.

Huck by a Nose: The Most Prolific Emailers

Hardly a day this summer has passed without a new email in my inbox from either Hillary Clinton or Mike Huckabee; these candidates stood out as the most prolific emailers of the past two months (see first chart, above). Hillary led for the most of that period, but a final sprint captured the coveted title of “Most Emails Sent” for Team Huckabee; the former governor took the lead on July 27th and held on to beat his Democratic rival by a nose. This graph charts the total number of emails received over time:

How did the former Arkansas Governor upset the Democratic frontrunner? Over the last 11 days in July, the Huckabee campaign emailed 21 times, vs. Clinton’s 11. What exactly was so urgent that Mike Huckabee emailed almost twice a day during that period? Iran.

Huckabee spent the last two weeks of July decrying President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and defending his remarks suggesting that the deal would lead to a new Holocaust; 57% of his emails from the period discussed foreign policy. Some of those emails (38%) bashed Clinton. And, as expected, he was also fundraising; 48% of his emails asked for donations.

Perhaps unexpected was Governor Huckabee’s dependence on his tablet over the same period: 7 of his 21 emails between July 21 and 31 were marked “sent from my iPad.” Maybe this is an attempt to ingratiate himself to us tech-savvy Millennials?

Email Oddities:

• Lincoln Chafee has only emailed me once, on July 30. Why didn’t he email sooner? Had his staff lost the Mailchimp password?
• On average, candidates asked for donations 64% of the time. But several candidates went way over this mark: Rick Perry (24 emails) and Scott Walker (9) each requested money in 100% of their emails. Jeb! Bush (24) solicited subscribers in 92% of his emails, and Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum (10 each) asked for money in 90%.
• Carly Fiorina loves Fox News. She mentioned the network by name in 52% of her 23 emails, twice as often as the next highest candidate
• What oddity list would be complete without Donald Trump? An average email from the tycoon ran at 575 words vs an overall average of 220 words (2).
• Bernie Sanders averaged 307 words per email, but the senator submitted the period’s longest missive: A 2,300 word treatise on his view on almost every subject in the campaign.
• Rick Perry nearly stopped emailing in July. The former governor sent me 21 emails in June and just three in July. Why is he no longer emailing? Is there no internet at the kids’ table?
• Mike Huckabee twice emailed nasty nostalgia by reviving Lyndon Johnson’s infamous “Daisy Attack Ad.” Huckabee’s “Iran Daisy” demands that voters stand with Israel against the Iranian nuclear deal. It’s a tactic squarely aimed at older voters.
• In his end of June push for donations, Rand Paul repeatedly asked subscribers to donate to his “Quarterly Money Bomb.” Marco Rubio briefly used, and then dropped, the phrase, “Let Freedom Ring Money Bomb.” What is this? Are they so desperate to please the NRA that they need to drop in extra references to weaponry?

Thanks for Reading!

Thanks for reading the first post in the Presidential Email Project. It’s important to note that all numbers here come from my personal email account, where I’ve subscribed to each list from my own, Democratic-leaning zip code. I’m also receiving emails on accounts with Republican-leaning and “purple” zip codes; check back on future posts for analyses across all three accounts.

If you have questions or suggestions for follow up analyses I’d love to hear them!

Footnotes

1. I didn’t start subscribing to email lists from Kaisch or Webb until August
2. Emails that are just images count as having 0 words, even if there are words in the image. I can’t run a word count on images…